Updating beneficiaries on your life insurance policies is a responsible thing to do.That money given to the wrong person can create a lot of problems!
Chris Leitch
Life insurance is an agreement with an insurance company to give your estate or family member an instant potentially tax free
bucket of money. That money given to the wrong person can create a lot of problems! With every life policy there is someone who owns the policy, someone who is covered under the policy, and someone who will get the benefit once a death occurs.
Often times when someone has a lifestyle change i.e. loss of a job, divorce, marriage, birth of a new child they get so busy sorting out the new change that they forget to do housekeeping on their insurance and financial policies. For life insurance policies, the owner has all of the control to make changes to a life policy until the insured dies. At that point the beneficiary controls the policy and the payout of the death benefit. Most of the time the owner and the person insured are the same person, so we don't have three different parties to the contract. Life insurance is considered an asset, and can offer tax free windfalls of capital to an estate or individual. It's best to make sure the right people are getting this benefit.
Give us a call if you need to update any of your current beneficiaries!