When was the last time that you checked the beneficiary designation for your retirement account or life insurance policy?
If you have not recently done so, then you may find that your designated beneficiary is not who or what you think it should be, especially if you have divorced, remarried or had children since your retirement plan account was initially established.
What if you named a charity as your beneficiary, and that charity no longer exists?
While many of us ensure that other important documents such as trusts, wills and powers of attorney are updated on a frequent basis, we tend to neglect beneficiary designations.
There are numerous cases where a retirement account owner has divorced and remarried and neglected to update their beneficiary designations. A similar situation arises where children are named as life insurance beneficiaries but the document has not been updated to include those who were born after the initial designation.
To prevent these situations, you should periodically review and, if necessary, update your beneficiary designations. This can be done by contacting the custodian of your retirement account and your life insurance agent and completing paperwork.