MACDONALD FINANCIAL SERVICES’ Post

Transcript

Hi, everybody. Thanks for watching. Today we're going to talk a little bit about, the importance of checking your beneficiaries. So, obviously here at McDonald Financial, we want to make sure we have your beneficiaries correct. However, you may have accounts many other places might be with a former employer or might be with a current employer. Heaven forbid you have an account that is not, with us at, one of our competitors, but, occasionally that does happen. And, so we want to make sure we have your beneficiaries correct. And Devon and I are going to tell you a little bit about why, that's so important. So, Devin. Yeah, you know, I think it's it's, I don't know how many stories AJ and I could probably recite here, but we don't have enough time to do it. But, we've heard time and time again of just horrible stories of money transferring to folks that they weren't intended to get those, dollars. I can think of one example in particular where, well, I've had two, actually, that almost the exact same thing happened, where I had an ex-husband inherited his ex-wife's money, from a 401 K that she had that she had, unfortunately passed away and not changed her beneficiary on. So her ex-husband got 401 K, her current husband got nothing. So that's one example. That I can think of, you know, with many things, retirement accounts, obviously that's important. One thing that AJ can touch on is bank accounts. I mean, it would certainly, we would advise to have beneficiaries listed on your bank account. So. AJ yeah, exactly. So, you know, one of the things that we want to try to help our clients avoid is probate, and that's not a dirty word. In the state of Colorado, probate is not, significant cost. It's not extremely time consuming either. However, it does air your dirty laundry. So we try to help our clients avoid that whenever possible. And, by doing, by doing that, we want to make sure you have beneficiaries listed on all your assets. So, as Devin pointed out, that would be your bank accounts. And, you know, we haven't touched on it yet, but, many times it makes a lot of sense to put a beneficiary deed on to your house to help avoid probate. Now, it's not the end of the world. If if, you don't do those things and your estate ends up having to be probated. However, for your heirs, it's just more timely. It's going to take six months on average. It's not extremely expensive, but, you can do it yourself. I've done that for my mother in law, probated her estate here in Colorado. It's not a big deal. However, you hire an attorney, and now the expenses are going to go up fairly, fairly rapidly. So, you know, if which we've seen a lot of, former 401 K���s or old 401 K���s that people might have, they didn't even list a beneficiary at all. Maybe they were single at the time. Perhaps, they listed one of their parents, and their parents are now deceased, and then they, they end up passing away. So in the state of Colorado doesn't mean the money just disappears. The money will go to, go through probate, and then the courts will decide where those funds will go. So we would much rather have current beneficiaries all named. So the money upon your passing will go to the people you want to go to. Devin, do you have anything to add? No, I think that was again summed up perfectly. Like AJ said, we would certainly recommend and certainly would be more than happy, to look at the beneficiaries not only on stuff that we manage, but other places as well. Life insurance policies. That's very important to have beneficiaries listed there that are current and up to date. So yeah, no, just can't can't, emphasize it enough. Beneficiaries are definitely, something to not overlook. Yeah, exactly. So, if you have any questions, give the office call. We'd be happy to, talk to you a little bit about what you've got listed now as your beneficiaries or the importance of, why we recommend getting them checked. So, thanks for watching, and we'll talk to you soon.