A New Article and an Old Book. Both Contain Lessons For Gift Planners And Bequest Managers
A recent article in the New York Times highlights an important but sometimes overlooked feature of estate planning: the beneficiary designation, especially on IRA and 401(k) retirement accounts. While it is possible to have these accounts pass into an estate (whether by will or trust), it is often more efficient to name beneficiaries to receive payment directly from the custodian. In appropriate circumstances, it may be helpful for gift planners to remind bequest “prospects” that they can split beneficiary designations (e.g., 50% to children, 50% to charity) just as they could in a will or trust.
Conversations about beneficiary designations can also provide an opportunity for a charity to discover the location of account assets which may otherwise be unknown even to a trustee or executor. Whether or not the charity benefits from a particular account, it is a real service to the donor to ensure that her full estate passes in accordance with her wishes. A distressing number of retirement accounts wind up on the unclaimed property lists.
The Times article rightly notes that there are many reasons to have a will, even if most of a testator’s assets will pass by designation. However, the piece is less impressive in its inclusion of a recommendation that one can simply “download a PDF and fill it in” to make a will. This is risky business, especially when there are several reputable “do it yourself” estate planning websites that are far better and quite inexpensive (in some cases, even free).
Speaking of the Times, 2025 is the 50th anniversary of the publication of a landmark probate book that spent 47 weeks on the newspaper’s fabled “best seller” list and sold over three million copies. This was Norman Dacey’s How to Avoid Probate. Dacey’s book was a mixture of commentary and tear-out forms that alerted the public to beneficiary designations, revocable trusts and other maneuvers that are now staples in the bequest industry. The volume’s emphasis on “do-it-yourself” certainly establishes it as the ancestor of the DIY websites that have proliferated in recent years. Even though Dacey tangled with bar associations (sometimes winning, sometimes losing) and exaggerated the difficulties of probate, his book remains informative, entertaining, and easy-to-read. Given its sales volume, used copies turn up everywhere.
(This blog was originally posted on our LinkedIn on May 9, 2025.)