Name: Why Your Will Isn’t Always the Last Word on Who Gets Your Assets
Uploaded: 2023-10-27T22:16:00Z
Duration: 7 min 45 s
Description: Many people make out a will to ensure their heirs receive their belongings and financial assets when they die. WSJ personal-finance reporter Ashlea Ebeling joins host J.R. Whalen to discuss how forgotten documents could override your estate plans. Photo Illustration By Elena Scotti/The Wall Street Journal, Istock

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Many people make out a will to ensure their heirs receive their belongings and financial assets when they die. WSJ personal-finance reporter Ashlea Ebeling joins host J.R. Whalen to discuss how forgotten documents could override your estate plans. Photo Illustration By Elena Scotti/The Wall Street Journal, Istock

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Why Your Will Isn’t Always the Last Word on Who Gets Your Assets

J.R.: Here's Your Money Briefing for Friday, October 27th. I'm J.R. Whalen for the Wall Street Journal. Estate planners and financial professionals often recommend people make out a will to direct who gets their assets when they die, but it turns out, a will may not actually be the final word. Wall Street Journal Personal Finance Reporter Ashlea Ebeling joins me. So Ashlea, most people would probably be surprised to learn that their last will and testament doesn't necessarily call all the shots. What could supersede what somebody spells out in a will?

Ashlea: There's actually a lot of documents that can override wills, and the chances, are you've already filled them out through the beneficiary forms for retirement accounts, life insurance policies, and some bank and brokerage accounts. And it's true whether the accounts are open through your workplace or on your own.

J.R.: So let's talk about how people's assets could wind up in unintended hands. You wrote about somebody who listed their spouse as the beneficiary on their life insurance policy, but they got divorced and then the person changed the beneficiary name. What happened after that?

Ashlea: So in that case, the man, he was a veterinarian in Arkansas, married to a third wife. She said she wanted to leave him. He rushed to update his will and other estate-planning documents to ensure she wouldn't get anything, but when he faxed in the change of beneficiary form to the insurance company, he failed to sign and date it. So he was trying to put his three children from his first marriage as the new beneficiaries. They ended up in a six-year legal fight that went all the way up to the Arkansas Supreme Court. It's a unusual case. Usually the person on the policy named on the beneficiary form is the one who gets it. So in these cases, very often, an ex-spouse can get the proceeds.

J.R.: But why initially would the spouse be named the beneficiary, even if he sent in those signed documents?

Ashlea: That's the kind of crazy thing with these forms. It's often, in the case of 401k plans, it's federal law that applies. In the case of the life insurance policies, it's whatever the company's policy says. So you can really get stuck with these unintended consequences.

J.R.: How are IRAs different from life insurance policies and 401ks in a situation like this?

Ashlea: For 401ks, the married spouses are essentially automatically entitled to the money unless they sign a notarized formal waiver. With individual retirement accounts, it's different. In most states there, you can name someone other than your spouse as a beneficiary without getting a waiver. But then again, there are always exceptions. If you're in a community property state, like California or Texas, there, you'll still need a waiver. So that would be a case if you wanted to name an adult child instead of a spouse.

J.R.: How common is this issue regarding some people's assets?

Ashlea: It's practically everybody it affects because anyone with a retirement account and anyone with a life insurance policy. Part of the problem is people sign up for these accounts maybe when they start a job and then it'll be like, one thing you're doing when you're onboarding for a job, you'll fill out that beneficiary form and it can be decades later, that's what applies. And you might not think to change it. You might not remember what's on it.

J.R.: And I guess over time, people have accumulated accounts in several different places.

Ashlea: That's one reason it's financial planners say it's a really good idea to try to consolidate assets in fewer financial institutions.

J.R.: What steps do people tend to overlook that might cause them to lose control of the direction of their retirement and their insurance assets?

Ashlea: First off is consolidation of accounts, fewer accounts, there are fewer things to keep track of. And then keeping documents up to date is just super important. If anything changes in your life, if you get married, get divorced, have children, those are all times you should consider making revisions to these forms.

J.R.: You spoke with financial experts who say that people should be sure their accounts and policies sync up with their overall estate plan. What does that mean?

Ashlea: One 401k specialist I talked to, he actually just redid his estate plan to include a trust for his children and then he looked back and said, "Oh, my 401k beneficiary form listed my children." So he had to update that to make the trust the beneficiary. Otherwise, it would've gone directly to the children, not to his trust. So that's just one example. If you're talking to an estate planner, it's just of utmost important that they're not just talking about wills and trusts, but you make sure you tell them about all your accounts and bring these forms in with you, and even bank and brokerage accounts, some people put beneficiary forms on those as a matter of convenience. So when someone dies, a child would automatically inherit that account. But that can have unintended consequences too. So the state plan has to be looked at in totality.

J.R.: Seems like there are a lot of moving parts here. A financial professional might come in handy if somebody is trying to round up all their assets and make sure that they're in one safe place.

Ashlea: Well, safeguarding the beneficiary forms is also important. You should keep copies of them with your other estate planning documents. And also, one advisor I talked to suggested getting a stamped copy that you'd actually send in the copy to the financial institution and ask them to send back a stamped copy that you can then keep in your records to prove that they have it.

J.R.: A stamped copy in what way?

Ashlea: Just basically a stamped copy saying that it was received. His point was you have to prove that they got it.

Ashlea: You spoke to a lot of people who were handling their own assets and their own retirement accounts and insurance policies. Seems like they were very surprised at times that things weren't going according to plan. So how can people take a step back and get their ducks in order from point A to point Z and avoid mistakes?

Ashlea: So it's having an overall asset list is really important, what all your accounts are. And then you can see with those accounts how they would pass upon your death, keeping the beneficiary forms in the file with your will and trust, and then sharing that information with a trusted advisor, which could be an estate planner, but also it could be the heirs and whoever you would be appointing as your personal representative and trustee, so they know where to find those beneficiary forms when you pass away.

J.R.: So we've just discussed some ways that a will can be overridden. Does this mean it's not as important as we think?

Ashlea: A will is still of utmost importance. It lets you pick guardians for your children and it's kind of a catch-all document for anything that's not going by these beneficiary forms.

J.R.: That's Wall Street Journal reporter Ashlea Ebeling, and that's it for Your Money Briefing. We'll be back on Monday with WSJ Reporter Imani Moise to discuss why some financial experts say a simple spreadsheet can be better than an app to create a budget. This episode was produced by Zoe Culkin. I'm your host, J.R. Whalen. We had additional support this week from Ariana Aspuru. Our supervising producer is Melanie Roy. Aisha Al-Muslim is our development producer. Scott Salaway and Chris Zinsli are our deputy editors. And Philana Patterson is the Wall Street Journal's head of news audio. We'll be back with a new show on Monday morning. Thanks for listening.

WSJ's Your Money Briefing podcast is your personal-finance and career checklist. Finance reporters and experts break down complicated money questions every weekday to help you make better decisions about managing your money. 

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