Planning What's Next
Legacy planning is about more than having life insurance. It includes understanding the protection you have, making sure beneficiary designations reflect your intentions, helping the people you care about know what exists, organizing important financial-account information, and preparing for benefits and relationships to continue when they are needed.
What's changing
A beneficiary designation is only useful if it works when it matters. Life changes over time. Families change. Addresses change. Relationships change. Financial accounts change. Yet beneficiary designations — and the information needed to connect benefits with the people they were intended for — may remain untouched for years.
Who does it affect?
Your legacy is about people, not just accounts. Legacy readiness is a household consideration, not an individual one.
What to consider
Understanding what already exists can help reveal what is protected, what is organized, and what may still need attention. We do not provide legal or tax conclusions about ownership, beneficiary rights, transfer-on-death treatment, probate, wills, trusts, or estate administration.
A life change doesn’t always mean you need new insurance.
What to consider next
What financial protection would the household need if someone died or could no longer fulfill their current financial role? Consider existing workplace life insurance, personal life insurance, and other household financial protection, and whether that existing protection still aligns with current household responsibilities, before adding something new.
Are beneficiaries named where appropriate, do the designations still reflect current intentions, and are contingent beneficiaries addressed where appropriate?
Do the people who may eventually need this information know that benefits, policies, accounts, or important documents exist? The goal is appropriate awareness, not unrestricted access to private financial information.
Can the household identify important insurance policies, financial accounts, benefit relationships, and trusted professionals?
Have designations and related information been reviewed after meaningful changes — marriage, divorce, birth or adoption, a death, retirement, a job change, or new financial accounts?
If something happens, will the household know where to start? That is benefit and relationship continuity.
Relevant solutions
Legacy is the primary connection here, with retirement-related beneficiary considerations where genuinely relevant.
Life, disability, supplemental benefit, and long-term-care coverage considered around the financial consequences a household may face.
Explore ProtectionProtection and preparedness for what you want to leave behind — including life insurance where appropriate, beneficiary preparedness, financial-account organization, and coordination with the legal and financial professionals who may be part of the larger legacy picture.
Explore LegacyThese are the areas that may deserve attention given what’s changing. You are not expected to work out which coverage applies to you from this list.
Get help from a Financial Relationship Manager
A Financial Relationship Manager can help you review what you have, confirm who it is intended for, identify what may need updating, and coordinate the appropriate professional when specialized expertise is required.
A Financial Relationship Manager helps you understand what is changing and what may need attention — so you don't have to figure that out on your own first.
A Financial Relationship Manager is a relationship steward and coordinator. The role does not by itself make someone an investment adviser, financial planner, attorney, tax adviser, or estate-planning professional. When a need calls for one of those disciplines, the role is to help you get to the right professional — not to substitute for one.
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Related life changes
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Third-party research helps explain why beneficiary readiness deserves attention. Each finding below is attributed to its original source.
59%
of consumers surveyed by TransUnion said they did not know how to determine whether they were the beneficiary of a life insurance policy.
Source: TransUnion, 2025 Life Insurance Annual Outlook, reporting 2024 consumer survey findings.
Beneficiary designations can remain in effect for long periods without being reviewed or updated. The U.S. Department of Labor has noted that participants may forget whom they designated as beneficiaries — or may not know whether they completed a beneficiary designation.
Source: U.S. Department of Labor
30%
of parents in Fidelity's 2025 Family & Finance Study had not created a will and estate plan they felt confident about. Fidelity's research also identifies communication gaps between generations involving inheritance, wishes, and future responsibilities.
Beneficiary readiness
Beneficiary preparedness involves more than entering a name on a form. Official designations remain with the applicable carrier, financial institution, retirement plan, employer, or other institution.
Has a beneficiary been designated where appropriate?
Does the designation still reflect the account or policy owner's intentions?
Is there an appropriate level of awareness that the benefit, policy, or account exists?
Would the appropriate people know where to begin when a benefit eventually needs to transition?
Beneficiary readiness technology
Benefits Beyond Work works with sister company Beneficiary ProActive™ to support beneficiary preparedness and continuity across the household.
Benefits Beyond Work provides the relationship, guidance, and insurance experience. Beneficiary ProActive™ provides the beneficiary-readiness capability.
Beneficiary ProActive™ can support an organized beneficiary-readiness experience, while official beneficiary designations remain with the applicable insurance carrier, financial institution, retirement plan, employer, investment provider, or other institution.
A Financial Relationship Manager can help identify what may need attention and coordinate appropriate next steps. When legal, tax, estate-planning, investment, or other specialized advice is required, the appropriate professional should provide that expertise.
Start by understanding what you have, who it is intended for, what may need updating, and how the household can be better prepared.