Beneficiary designations checklist
A checklist of every account that passes by beneficiary form rather than by your will, and who is currently named on each.
Free with an account.
This one is free. What you pay for any other document counts in full toward a package.
Who this is for
- You are about to make a will and want to know what it will and will not control.
- You have been divorced, remarried, or widowed and have never checked the forms.
- You have changed jobs several times and have retirement accounts in more than one place.
- You want the ninety minutes of work that most often changes where money actually goes.
What it does not do
- It is a worksheet. It changes nothing on its own; you have to file the change with each institution.
- It is not a valuation and not a tax document.
- Filling it in does not update anything. The institution's own form is what updates a beneficiary.
How to sign it in your state
Pennsylvania
Beneficiary Designations Checklist
This is an organizer or instruction document; it does not use a formal witness or notary ceremony.
Airlooms has no state-specific signing rule promoted into the guided Signing Center for this document yet, so this page will not guess at one. The witness and notary blocks are confirmed on the document itself when you generate it, and the document carries a review notice.
New York
Beneficiary Designations Checklist
This is an organizer or instruction document; it does not use a formal witness or notary ceremony.
Airlooms has no state-specific signing rule promoted into the guided Signing Center for this document yet, so this page will not guess at one. The witness and notary blocks are confirmed on the document itself when you generate it, and the document carries a review notice.
New Jersey
Beneficiary Designations Checklist
This is an organizer or instruction document; it does not use a formal witness or notary ceremony.
Airlooms has no state-specific signing rule promoted into the guided Signing Center for this document yet, so this page will not guess at one. The witness and notary blocks are confirmed on the document itself when you generate it, and the document carries a review notice.
Get started
Most people's estate plan fails in a way a will cannot fix, because most of what they own never passes through the will at all.
Retirement accounts, life insurance, annuities and payable-on-death accounts go to whoever is named on the form. Jointly owned property with survivorship goes to the survivor. Your will governs the rest. If the beneficiary form still names a former spouse, that is where the money goes, whatever your will says.
This checklist is the two hours that most reliably changes an outcome. It is free, and finishing it before you write your will is why.
Common questions
Does my will override a beneficiary designation?
Generally no. An account with a valid beneficiary named passes to that person by contract, outside the estate, and the will does not reach it. That is why this checklist exists.
Which accounts does this cover?
Retirement accounts, life insurance, annuities, payable-on-death and transfer-on-death accounts, and anything held in joint names with survivorship. Between them they are often most of what a person owns.
What is the most common mistake?
A form filled in years ago and never revisited. An ex-spouse still named on a pension, or a beneficiary line left blank so the account defaults into the estate and into probate.
Should I name my estate as beneficiary?
Usually not, because it pulls the account into probate and can have tax consequences. There are situations where it is right; that is a question for an attorney or your tax adviser.
Why is it free?
It binds nothing and grants no authority, and completing it makes your will accurate. Charging for it would only slow people down.
Included in
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