How Do I Change a Beneficiary Designation with My Will or Trust?
0:31 Well, good afternoon, Michiganers, and welcome to Tuesday with Tom, Michigan's Only podcast where we talk about estate planning, a state settlement, and everything in between. As always, I'm your host, Tom Doyle, a state planning attorney, lifelong Michigan resident, and ambassador for all things good in this great state of Michigan. Welcome, Welcome to today's episode. Well, just a b recap of the last episode Understanding Michigan Certificate of Law Trust. Many of you might have a certificate of trust that was prepared with your estate plan, or you might be dealing with the title company you're selling real estate and they're asking you for a certificate of trust and you're wondering what that is and why it's important. Well, if you have any questions about certificate of trust, I invite you listen to our last episode. I discuss the legal requirements for a certificate of trust and what they are used for in the state of Michigan. Today's show, though, how do I change a beneficiary designation with my will or trust?
1:48 A question that a man and I are frequently asked when clients come in. They might have already put beneficiaries on life insurance policies, they put beneficiars on bank accounts, but beneficiaries on their retirement plans, et cetera. But now they want to change those and they're wondering how can they do that by either having a will or having a trust. So that's what we're going to be talking about today, how beneficiary designations work and how you can change them with a will or trust. But please remember what I'm about to discuss is, as always, for educational purposes only. It is not intended to be legal advice.
2:31 As always, you need to work with you and your attorney to determine what is appropriate for you and your estate plan. So how do you change a beneficiary designation with your will or your trust. Well, let's start with identifying what it is we're actually talking about today. So what's a will. Well, if you've attended one of our seminars or you've listened to previous episodes of this program, you'll know that a will is simply a legal document.
3:18 In that document, it talks about where you want your estate to go to, who the de disease are, if you will in your will, if you have mind your children. You're going to be talking about who's going to raise your children until they get to be eighteen. But that's basically what a will is. It's a legal document. It has to meet the requirements for properly prepared and executed in the state of Michigan. And the other thing though that you would know is that a will is a meaningless document until a couple things die, a couple things happen. I'm sorry, one is you die. So until you die, the will is really a meaningless accumulation of paper, and it is meaningless until a probated state is opened. But once a probatea state is opened, then the will is going to control all of the assets that you own that are going to go through probate. Now, what's a trust. Well, a trust is very much like a will in the sense that it is a legal document. A trust is normally used to provide how you want your state to be disturbed at the time of your death, and you're going to have a trustee, someone who's going to be in charge of that. Those are basically the primary functions of a trust. Now, one difference, major difference between having a trust and having a will is that assets that are in the trust don't go through probate, where assets
4:52 that are only going to be controlled by your will are the only those assets that actually go through probate. So think of a trust. Though I've talked about this in previous episodes as though it's a box sitting in front of you on the table as you're listening to today's episode. The trust controls assets that you put in the box, i e. Assets that are, as lawyers called it, funded to your trust. So what's a beneficiary designation? Well, beneficiary and there's a there's a different number of terms, but they all essentially mean the same thing. It might be a beneficiary, It might be a TOD which stands for transfer on death. That might be a POD which means payable on death, but the essentially all mean the same thing. It's essentially a contract between you and a company.
5:46 It might be you and your bank. It might be you and your life insurance company. It might be between you and your financial management company. Whatever it is where it's a written contract between you in the company. And basically what that contract does is it spells out who or where you want assets to go at the time of your death. So use life insurance as an example. You have a life insurance policy. You have a beneficiary designation on your life insurance policy, and that life insurance designation might indicate, for example, on upon your death, you want your life insurance to go to your spouse. Well, that's the contract between you and the life insurance company.
6:33 Or it might be a bank account between you and your credit union, or you and your bank, et cetera. But essentially, per that contract, upon your death, those assets that are controlled by that contract are going to go directly to the person that you wanted them to go to, meaning what they do not go through probate. However, it could be let's say that person that you designated as a beneficiary dies before you and you haven't named an alternate to that person, and then in that case the assets are still actually going to go through probate. But the idea is you've got a contract, you're looking to avoid probate, and you're saying, I want these assets to go directly to this person upon my death. Well, with that as our explanation today, then let's think about assets.
7:30 Let's look at the situation where you have a beneficiary on your bank account and you say, hey, can I change the beneficiary on my bank account by having a will or having a trust, or maybe you've got a beneficiary on your annuity and you're looking and saying, can I how can I change that beneficiary? So all of these different things where you have been beneficiaries on them, bank accounts, annuities, life insurance, I raise for one k's. All of those assets where you've got beneficiaries on them, you're looking in saying how do I change them with my will or my trust? Well, if you keep in mind that the will is only going to affect assets that go through probate, and the beneficiary assets the assets that you have beneficiaries on avoid probate, the answer is you can't change that. Of course, amand and I would
16:28 be honored to If you've got questions about your beneficiary designations and how they fit into your state plan, we'd be happy to help discuss that with you, or creating a state plan for you if you don't already have one, or perhaps updating the state plan that you already have, or guide you through the entire estate settlement process if you're looking at settling and a state and we're trying to make it easy as we can to get started. If you simply go to our website DOYLELOWPC dot com. There you're going to find information on how to schedule appointments with us. It can be a virtual consultation that will be via zoom or phone wherever you happen to be in the state of Michigan, or we offer in person appointments both in Ground Rapids and Lancing, So if you live in the Grand Rapids area or the Lancing area, you will be able to schedule a consultation through the website.
17:29 Reminder two, if perhaps all you need is one document, let's say maybe you're just looking at having a new healthcare power returnity created for you, Well check out the legal store again available at Doyle LAWPC dot com, and there you're going to see that you have the ability to order just individual documents as well that can be prepared and emailed to you for execution. Again, all of that and more information is available at DOYLELAWPC dot com. Well, that's a wrap, as they say, for today's show. As always, Oh, if you have a comment about the program, a question you'd like answered, or a topic that you'd like me to cover in future episodes, head over to Tuesday with Tom dot com. You can leave me a voice message by clicking on the microphone or just send me an email that would be Tom at Tuesday with Tom dot com and be sure to follow us on Facebook. Invite your family and friends to do the same at Tuesday with Tom and follow the office as well, which would be Doyle LOPC. And don't forget subscribe to our email list.
18:52 You can do that at Tuesday with Tom dot com or DOYLELAPC either location, where we will keep you updated on things that are happening with the program and other estate planning tips. And remember too, you can listen to Tuesday with Tom wherever you enjoy your podcast run many many different services such as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Radio, Google Podcast, iHeartRadio, and Speaker and if you have a smart speaker you can always ask your smart speaker to play Tuesday with Tom as well. Well. Thanks again for spending part of your day with us today and until the next time, take care, stay safe, and have an awesome day and an awesome week here in Michigan. Tuesday with Tom has been brought to you by the estate planning attorneys at Doyle Law PC to learn how we can help you with your estate plan or with settling a loved one's estate, Please call us today at five one seven three two three seven three sixty six. That's five one seven, three two three seven three sixty six
