Naming a bank account beneficiary ensures your money goes straight to your loved ones without getting tied up in costly, time-consuming probate. Most banks let you do this through a “Payable on Death” ...

Banks and other financial institutions don’t automatically ask account holders to designate a beneficiary, so it can be easy to forget or postpone adding a beneficiary until it’s more convenient. But ...

When people think about estate planning, they often focus on wills and trusts. But one of the most important decisions about where your money goes after you die might not appear in those documents.

Understand how your 401(k) is handled after your passing, including beneficiary rules and tax implications, to ensure your ...

A newly acquired individual retirement account (IRA) is good financial news for the recipient, but clients may need help unraveling the host of rules and requirements regulating how and when ...

Time to catch up on some of the questions that readers have sent in. Q: I've read that you can add a payable on death beneficiary to a car title. I've gone to the BMV website but I can't find a form.

Steps to make sure your life insurance pays out efficiently to the people you want to support Written By Written by Insurance Staff Writer, WSJ | Buy Side Kimberly Lankford is an insurance staff ...

One of the most common estate-planning mistakes has nothing to do with wills or trusts. It happens quietly through joint accounts and beneficiary designations that people set up years earlier and ...

If an IRA is inherited through an estate, the distribution rules for the estate apply, even if the IRA is later transferred to a person. Distribution rules depend on whether the IRA owner died before ...