Laura Zwicker, Private Client Services Group Chair, was featured in The Wall Street Journal highlighting the importance of updating beneficiaries.

Excerpts:

Many people also fail to update beneficiaries for life insurance, retirement accounts and bank or investment accounts. These assets pass according to the beneficiary designation, if there is one, regardless of what the will or living trust says, says Laura Zwicker, chair of the private client services group at law firm Greenberg Glusker Fields Claman & Machtinger in Los Angeles.

A client’s brother had an IRA valued at several million dollars. When he died, the IRA funds went to a woman he hadn’t dated for at least 10 years instead of to his brother’s daughters, even though they were named as beneficiaries in his trust. The heir indicated on the IRA was the former girlfriend, and that was the one that counted. “Imagine their surprise, but there’s nothing we can do about it,” Zwicker says.

Resources

• The Wall Street Journal (Subscription Required)