Testamentary trusts, simultaneous death, and life insurance

[hyperian]

Hi Peeps

My wife and I have a toddler and need to revise our wills. I'm trying to understand whether there's a way to exercise flexibility in how life insurance beneficiaries are nominated. In the event that my wife and I die around the same time (simultaneous death) we'd want the life insurances to pay out to a testamentary trust where my son will be the beneficiary (because if you're under 18 you can't inherit anything). But if only one of us dies we'd want the surviving spouse to be the beneficiary of the life insurance (with no trust needing to be created). It doesn't seem like a will can override the beneficiaries you nominate in your life insurance policy. Any thoughts on how to navigate this?

 

[twaatie]

Hi Peeps

My wife and I have a toddler and need to revise our wills. I'm trying to understand whether there's a way to exercise flexibility in how life insurance beneficiaries are nominated. In the event that my wife and I die around the same time (simultaneous death) we'd want the life insurances to pay out to a testamentary trust where my son will be the beneficiary (because if you're under 18 you can't inherit anything). But if only one of us dies we'd want the surviving spouse to be the beneficiary of the life insurance (with no trust needing to be created). It doesn't seem like a will can override the beneficiaries you nominate in your life insurance policy. Any thoughts on how to navigate this?

Our will basically said , if one spouse dies the surviving spouse gets everything ... In the event of both of us passing at the same time , stuff gets put in a trust for the kids . In the event of entire family passing gets paid to nominated beneficiaries .


Life insurance , pays out to beneficiary . Which is spouse . If both pass at same time it should be paid into estate which should follow you will

 

[rrh]

Fairly standard stuff; shouldn't be a problem

 

[heartbroken]

My life insurance shows “estate” as the beneficiary on the document. With mine everything just gets divided in the will as needed

 

[bokka1]

My life insurance shows “estate” as the beneficiary on the document. With mine everything just gets divided in the will as needed

Get beneficiaries appointed, it will lower your executor fees.

 

[sgs]

If no beneficiaries are alive at the time your life insurance pays out, it should ordinarily pay into your estate.

So it should be safe to put your spouse as a beneficiary. In the worst case, it will then still fall to your estate and be included in the trust setup by the will.

That is how it was explained to me...

 

[Barbarian Conan]

Hi Peeps

My wife and I have a toddler and need to revise our wills. I'm trying to understand whether there's a way to exercise flexibility in how life insurance beneficiaries are nominated. In the event that my wife and I die around the same time (simultaneous death) we'd want the life insurances to pay out to a testamentary trust where my son will be the beneficiary (because if you're under 18 you can't inherit anything). But if only one of us dies we'd want the surviving spouse to be the beneficiary of the life insurance (with no trust needing to be created). It doesn't seem like a will can override the beneficiaries you nominate in your life insurance policy. Any thoughts on how to navigate this?

I have this exact "simultaneous death" section in my standard life insurance policy.

 

[hyperian]

Thanks for all the feedback. It sounds fairly straightforward but have been confused around whether a will can override the nominated beneficiaries in the life insurance policy. From what I've read a will can't supersede these nominations at the policy level. So if both the wife and I peg and "estate" is listed as the beneficiary, then my son would need to wait until the estate is wound up to get any money, and the money ultimately will get handled by the government's Guardian Fund on behalf of my son, which is basically another underperforming state vehicle that underperforms and has burdensome bureaucracy attached to it.

Plus, the 4% executor's fees doesn't excite me