This week I’m sharing with you 5 beneficiary mistakes to avoid. If you’re like most people, you probably set up your beneficiaries on your IRA and 401k accounts 2 decades ago, and you haven’t revisited them since. So this week, I’m sharing with you the mistakes that I see people make most often and how you can avoid those same mistakes. 

Today, I’m talking about beneficiary mistake #3 - Leaving out contingent beneficiaries. 

A contingent beneficiary is someone whom you would list as a “just in case” or backup beneficiary. If you just list one person as your primary beneficiary and both of you die at the same time in a fiery plane crash (I know, so pleasant to think about, right?) how will the court or your heirs know what your plans were with those assets? 

Or maybe the primary beneficiary dies before you but you forget to update your beneficiaries, or maybe that person is in the witness protection program and can’t be located...whatever it is, there are plenty of scenarios where just naming a sole primary beneficiary could be problematic, so it’s important to add contingents, or backups, as well.

Thanks for listening. My name is Ashley Micciche and this is the One Minute Retirement Tip. 

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