Should I confirm beneficiaries on retirement accounts & insurance policies or is it OK not to name a beneficiary on a retirement account & insurance policies?
If you have not done so in recent memory, you should confirm the beneficiaries on your retirement accounts and insurance policies. This is not only because you may want to change them. For purposes of Medicaid, New York State limits post-death recovery to probate assets. Retirement accounts and insurance policies with named beneficiaries (other than your estate) are non-probate assets. If you do not have a named beneficiary, these assets will pass to your estate and must be probated to be distributed under a will or by statute in the absence of a will. It is a very good idea to name a secondary beneficiary in the event the primary beneficiary predeceases you. Also, without a designated beneficiary (an individual or a “pass through” trust – naming an individual as a beneficiary), if the account owner dies before the required beginning date of distributions, the entire balance of the retirement account must be paid out within 5 years of the end of the calendar year in which the owner die
