Sometimes conflicting beneficiary designations for 401(k) plan assets can be tough to sort out when a plan participant dies. It took a verdict from the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the 9 th ...

An employer’s retirement plan documents did not incorporate beneficiary designation forms in its language or appendices, so the forms did not govern the award of benefits, a court ruled. A federal ...

In Becker v. Mays-Williams, 13-35069-cv, 2015 WL 348872 (9th Cir. Jan 28, 2015), the Ninth Circuit – in a matter of first impression – concluded that beneficiary designation forms were not “documents ...

Most Americans believe their will distributes their estate, but that's not the case with retirement accounts, life insurance, and more.

An often-neglected area in the world of benefit plan administration is the beneficiary designation form. Many participants complete their beneficiary designations incorrectly because they don’t read ...

When you think of estate planning, most people think about getting their wills and trusts in order. But for many investors, their IRA or 401(k) beneficiary designation form will control the ...

A federal district court has ruled for a second time on litigation arising from a dispute over verbal and written beneficiary designations. A thorny Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) ...

Bernstein Private Wealth Management reports on strategies for managing inherited retirement accounts, emphasizing tax ...

Wills and trust are often thought of as the main components of an estate plan – the documents that determine who will receive our assets at death. However, simple beneficiary designation forms, which ...

A May 2017 decision of the Federal Court for the Middle District of Florida should provide an impetus for employers with employer-sponsored retirement plans to reevaluate their beneficiary designation ...

Julia Kagan is a financial/consumer journalist and former senior editor, personal finance, of Investopedia. Ebony Howard is a certified public accountant and a QuickBooks ProAdvisor tax expert. She ...

Beneficiary designations on retirement accounts override your will when it's time to determine who inherits your funds. Many people forget to update beneficiary forms, which leads to unintended ...