Beneficiary Designations, acknowledgement

[SJhawkins]

Updated IRA beneficiaries (held at Wells) to include our adult children as secondary beneficiaries. On the statement I can see the primary beneficiary (spouse) but not the secondary beneficiaries. Called to confirm it was updated and they have it the system supposedly but have no mechanism to acknowledge in writing it was done, not sure how I feel about that, thoughts?

They noted if I croak and my spouse is gone it will goto another department (forget what department) then it will get sorted out, seems kinda of crazy.

As a side note, we have a joint brokerage account at Vanguard and they won't let you add TOD on those accounts, that kind of stinks too. From my understanding Fidelity
will let us to the TOD as we want on the brokerage account.

Starting moving to Vanguard, open roth test IRAs and funded them, the beneficiaries were done and confirmed, can see them when you log on but then we ran into brokerage issue and stopped.

Half thinking of moving everything to one house if we can get the TOD and beneficiaries acknowledged accross every account in writing, maybe I'm asking to much!

 

[SecondCor521]

Given the importance of beneficiaries, I think it's very reasonable to expect to be able to see them in writing any time you want. I personally print off my Dad's beneficiary designations and mine and save the hard copy every year just in case.

The joint TOD thing is a known deficiency with Vanguard. Since I'm single, it doesn't bother me.

I think Fidelity and Schwab are both able to do joint account beneficiaries and provide evidence in writing. They may have other things you find out you don't like, but they're generally highly regarded.

 

[njhowie]

From my understanding Fidelity
will let us to the TOD as we want on the brokerage account.

Very easy to do online within your Fidelity account. Primary/contingent beneficiaries, can have multiple of each type and allocate percentages among each set of primary/contingent beneficiaries for each account. No problem.

 

[RunningBum]

I don't think you're asking too much.

 

[jazz4cash]

If it’s not in writing it’s useless. Will they (Wells) at least provide a letter stating the details. Sometimes I’ll ask via email or send a followup email (“just to confirm our conversation”) and print out the reply for my files.

 

[SJhawkins]

If it’s not in writing it’s useless. Will they (Wells) at least provide a letter stating the details. Sometimes I’ll ask via email or send a followup email (“just to confirm our conversation”) and print out the reply for my files.

I did ask if they would do that and they were not willing.

My guess is if I called and told them I'm going to move our accounts they may provide something, we have a decent amount with them.

Current thinking is to leave enough in one account to maintain the PMA status and move everything else. Would have to do the two step with the brokerage account, send it to Vanguard to convert all the funds to etfs then over to Fidelity. Already have a Vanguard account so would be simple enough I guess.