Retirement Accounts, Annuities, and the Probate Process
All retirement accounts and annuities are alike, whether they are IRAs or employer-provided plans, as far as whether they will be subject to probate. The only way these assets can be subject to probate is if you named your estate as the beneficiary or if the beneficiaries you named are dead.
If your employer established a retirement account for you, the administrator of the retirement account gave you an application to complete. On that application, you named one or more beneficiaries to whom your retirement benefits would be paid after your death. You may have completed that paperwork years ago.
If you have a retirement account established by your employer, you need to contact your employer's plan administrator to learn the rules about who you can name as beneficiary and how the retirement account proceeds will be taxed. You should also ask your employer's plan administrator for a copy of your beneficiary election.
You may also have multiple IRA accounts with different brokerage firms or banks. You should contact the administrator of each of your IRA accounts or annuities to request a copy of your beneficiary election form.
It is important, also, to keep all of your IRA and annuity administrators up-to-date on your current address. If your address changes after your last contact with these administrators, and the forwarding order expires, it may be difficult for correspondence from the administrators to reach you.
As you are now well aware, the beneficiaries of your retirement benefits or annuities are governed entirely by your beneficiary designation form on file with the administrator. Unless you have named your estate as the beneficiary, whatever you put in your will or trust will be completely disregarded.
