How My Husband and I Almost Accidentally Disinherited One of Our Children

When my husband and I got our act together and created our legacy plan, one of the tasks on our list was to dust off our life insurance and retirement policies to take a look at the beneficiary designations. To our shock and horror, we realized that we very nearly left our youngest child out of inheriting the largest chunk of the money that would be available to our kids!

We were so proud of ourselves for having obtained and maintained robust life insurance policies to provide for our children if something should happen to us. But … we must have done this sometime before the birth of our youngest child, because he was NOT LISTED as a contingent beneficiary like his sisters were. Thank goodness tragedy did not strike in our little guy’s first six years, because apparently if it had, our sizable policies would have gone to his sisters and not to him. Oops!!! 

This is not even to mention the fact that these designations named our minor children outright which creates its own quagmire of issues (a guardian of the property might need to be appointed by the court, the money would go to them outright at 18, no creditor or other protection, etc.). What a mess! 

Could our loved ones figure out a way to sort this out and make sure our children got what they needed? Probably. But it would be a huge pain in the you-know-what and they would likely have to spend a lot on lawyers in the process. This is just one of my personal examples of why legacy planning is so essential for parents of minor children. Something as simple as a form that we filled out years ago can leave our loved ones with a real problem on their hands, despite our best intentions. 

Parents - check your beneficiary designations! If you have questions about whether you’ve filled those forms out correctly to achieve your goals, give your friendly neighborhood estate planning lawyer a call.