Making sure you know who gets your nest egg after your death is important. Source: 401(k) 2012 via Flickr. Estate planning is an important part of ensuring that your assets go where you want them to ...

Life insurance policies require you to choose a beneficiary, which is the person who will be the recipient of your policy’s benefits at the time of payout. Many policies also ask you to choose a ...

A contingent beneficiary can help ensure that your assets, trusts and insurance payouts go to the parties you want them to go to. What is a contingent beneficiary? Whether setting up a financial ...

Your 401(k) doesn’t just disappear when you die. Here’s how it’s transferred, who gets it, the tax impact, and why ...

You need more than a primary beneficiary on your financial accounts... just in case. Contingency beneficiaries can be your Plan B and even Plan C. What is a contingent beneficiary? If that question ...

Julia Kagan is a financial/consumer journalist and former senior editor, personal finance, of Investopedia. David Kindness is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and an expert in the fields of ...

A secondary beneficiary, also called a contingent beneficiary, is a person or entity entitled to get a distribution of assets from an estate or trust after the estate owner’s death if the primary ...

If the beneficiary of a life insurance policy dies before the insured person, the death benefit will be split among any contingent beneficiaries if there are no contingent beneficiaries, it will be ...

When purchasing life insurance, the choice of who to name as beneficiary is one of the most important decisions a person makes. A beneficiary is the person who receives the death benefit. The owner of ...

When you purchase life insurance, the real goal is to make sure your loved ones are financially protected after you’re gone. Choosing your primary beneficiary — the person who will receive the ...