............for IRAs and Company Retirement Plans.............Note that is a different question than Do You Think You Know Who Your Beneficiaries Are?
The difference is that the former (Know) is the official list kept by banks or companies and the latter is your list.
Yesterday I got 6 e-mails from Fidelity telling me that I didn't have a beneficiary for my 401K plan. It was confusing because they also had a life insurance plan and another retirement plan and each e-mail seemed to differ as to whether I had beneficiaries for those other plans. Later (some hours later) another e-mail came saying to forget it........they had sent out those other e-mails by mistake.
In the meantime I had been probing the situation w/ Fidelity and after checking w/ rep#1 who thought he knew everything but actually knew nothing, I called back and got transferred to another rep who seemed more knowledgeable. She told me that my 401K didn't have beneficiaries but my DW's did. Although my plan had beneficiaries (confirmed) some yrs back , our group got transferred to a spinoff and although the 401K plan $$ got transferred, the beneficiary list didn't. DW stayed at the same employer and didn't have that issue.
There are other company plans that changed custodians so confirmation is needed. IRAs are in the same boat. Some were confirmed (in the past) with written acknowledgement. Some are questionable.....one bank lists the Roth IRA beneficiaries correctly w/ primary on one line, contingent on another line with appropriate labeling. The same bank lists TIRA beneficiaries separated but on the same line so it is not clear whether they consider them both primary or primary/contingent. Others I kept copies of the form I filled in but never asked for written confirmation.
Before this whole episode I was pretty confident that things were in order.
Now I'm not so sure..........I have come to appreciate VG as a custodian.
At least for company plans they seem to put the benefiaries clearly on every
quarterly statement. I need to get the rest of the world to follow in their
tracks.
The difference is that the former (Know) is the official list kept by banks or companies and the latter is your list.
Yesterday I got 6 e-mails from Fidelity telling me that I didn't have a beneficiary for my 401K plan. It was confusing because they also had a life insurance plan and another retirement plan and each e-mail seemed to differ as to whether I had beneficiaries for those other plans. Later (some hours later) another e-mail came saying to forget it........they had sent out those other e-mails by mistake.
In the meantime I had been probing the situation w/ Fidelity and after checking w/ rep#1 who thought he knew everything but actually knew nothing, I called back and got transferred to another rep who seemed more knowledgeable. She told me that my 401K didn't have beneficiaries but my DW's did. Although my plan had beneficiaries (confirmed) some yrs back , our group got transferred to a spinoff and although the 401K plan $$ got transferred, the beneficiary list didn't. DW stayed at the same employer and didn't have that issue.
There are other company plans that changed custodians so confirmation is needed. IRAs are in the same boat. Some were confirmed (in the past) with written acknowledgement. Some are questionable.....one bank lists the Roth IRA beneficiaries correctly w/ primary on one line, contingent on another line with appropriate labeling. The same bank lists TIRA beneficiaries separated but on the same line so it is not clear whether they consider them both primary or primary/contingent. Others I kept copies of the form I filled in but never asked for written confirmation.
Before this whole episode I was pretty confident that things were in order.
Now I'm not so sure..........I have come to appreciate VG as a custodian.
At least for company plans they seem to put the benefiaries clearly on every
quarterly statement. I need to get the rest of the world to follow in their
tracks.