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Death Benefits … Who Benefits? Do you know who will receive the benefits from your life insurance policy and superannuation fund?

Death Benefits, Estate Planning, Superannuation and Insurance, Wills
Death Benefits … Who Benefits? Do you know who will receive the benefits from your life insurance policy and superannuation fund?

You need to decide who should benefit from your assets or for whom you wish to provide financially.

You should be clear on how you want your beneficiaries to benefit – do you want them to inherit an asset, an income or cash?

Your Will cannot dictate who inherits the benefits from your life assurance policy.  You might think you can revoke the beneficiaries you have nominated on a life insurance policy by simply nominating other beneficiaries in your Will. But your loved ones might be in for a nasty surprise, when they find out (after your death) that you were wrong.

The life insurer has a contractual relationship with you as the policyholder, and they will only pay out the benefits to the beneficiaries nominated in your insurance contract, regardless of whether your Will states otherwise.

If you want to change your life insurance policy beneficiaries, you need to do this directly with your life insurance company.  You can’t do it in your Will.

Similarly, when it comes to your superannuation fund benefit, the discretion to distribute your death benefit lies with the trustees of the super fund, and they might not necessarily follow your wishes as stated on your beneficiary nomination form.  It is a complex area of the law, which may well have changed since you started with your super fund.

Death & taxes, illness & share-market corrections may be unavoidable … but they don’t have to ruin your family or your business.  Make the effort to protect the people you really care about.  Call Genders & Partners to create an integrated estate plan and avoid questions regarding death benefits in Adelaide and other areas in South Australia. And do it NOW … before it is too late.

Probate and Estate Administration Adelaide- How To Create An Expensive Disaster For Your Family To Fix After Your Death

How To Create An Expensive Disaster For Your Family To Fix After Your Death

Probate, Probate & Estate Administration, Wills
  1. Write your own Will. Use one of those cheap kits from the post office. The cheaper the better – why waste money on expensive stationery?
  2. Even better, download something from the interweb, preferably from another country. Try to get something that doesn’t have any creation date on it –it won’t be hard – that way you can be pretty sure that your Will won’t comply with local laws here and now.
  3. Don’t pay for professional legal advice. Just do it yourself. Type up (or better yet handwrite in a shaky hand) your own Will. Just in case, write up several Wills all on the same day – each slightly different.
  4. Make your gift to your daughter conditional upon her divorcing her loser husband. Put your son’s legacy in trust for 50 years, unless he completes 6 years in the army. Tell your wife that she can only keep the house as long as she never even thinks about another man AND never again speaks to her interfering busy-body mother.
  5. When writing your Will, talk about the assets in incredible detail – down to the serial number on your television. Then forget to keep track of those assets throughout your lifetime. Sell some, give some away, and junk some. It will be good for a laugh as you look up from Purgatory at your family trying to work out which assets are actually part of your estate, and who is to get what.
  6. Also, don’t bother trying to distinguish between your own assets outright, compared with assets that you might own jointly with someone else, or assets that are owned in a trust or company. Just treat them all the same.
  7. Try not to talk about your testamentary wishes with your family. After all they won’t get anything until after you’re dead, so they can jolly well wait until then.
  8. Be as secretive as possible with your own family, especially about your financial affairs. Don’t talk about what you are planning to do. Passively encourage your spouse and kids to assume they know what you want. Leave it vague enough so no one really knows.

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Wills and Estate Planning Adelaide: Estate Planning for Blended Families – More Important Than Ever

Blended Families and Divorce, Estate Planning, Wills and Estate Planning

Estate Planning for Blended Families - More Important Than Ever

If you are in a second or subsequent marriage that involves different sets of children, then you have a blended family.

If you are planning to start a new life, and maybe buy a home with your present spouse, then this time around you really need to develop an integrate plan to ensure that all the important people in your life receive their fair share of your assets after you die.  That’s what modern integrated estate planning does.

In most Australian jurisdictions, divorce will invalidate all gifts to an ex-spouse under a Will.  However re-marriage will automatically revoke the entire earlier Will (with only rare exceptions).