Creating a Trust as beneficiary to a life insurance policy…?
Posted on Jun 30, 2008 under Insurance Information |I want to change how the beneficiaries on my life insurance policy is written. Specifically I want to know how to create a trust for the benefit of someone when the life insurance policy pays out. For example, one of my beneficiaries might be "A trust created for the benefit of John Doe, to be paid when he turns 35 years old."
Can this be done? If so, how?
Please be sure to state where or how you have the knowledge for this answer.
June 30th, 2008 at 7:31 am
A great rescource that is cheap and easy to use is legalzoom.com.
What you are looking to do is not only possible, but encouraged to do so. Technically, you can write any letter and as long as it can be proven that you are the one that wrote and signed it, it should hold up in the court of law. All an attorney, or legalzoom does is make the wording and papertrail flawless to you.
Good luck to you.
June 30th, 2008 at 7:31 am
Casey's solution will work for the USA but will be of no value in the UK. I am no expert so I can't give you any valid advice. I did find this book on creating living trusts available at Amazon UK that you might find useful. (See the link below)
Likely you will need some legal guidance.
June 30th, 2008 at 7:31 am
The simple answer is you can't just use the beneficiary designation on an insurance contract to create a trust. You would want to set up a trust with legal advice (there are lots of different types of trusts depending on what you are wanting to do). Talk to a lawyer to set up the trust, then name the trust as beneficiary to the policy.
June 30th, 2008 at 7:31 am
This is typically very easy to do. The lawyer who helps you create the trust is stop number one. Once you have the trust set up, call customer service of your life insurance company and ask for the "beneficiary and title" department to ask them exactly how to name the trust. This will vary somewhat depending on your country and the type of trust.
If it is a revocable trust in the US, you usually just put the name of the trust and send in the first page of the trust to the insurance company. If it is irrevocable, you usually just include the date it was created and the TIN.
Make sure you leave clear documentation about where the life policy and the trust are so your inheritants don't have to ask one of those "how do I find a lost policy?" questions we see on here all the time.