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Old 03-27-2025, 02:14 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Rainger99 View Post
You are correct. At the present time, we have a joint account. I called vanguard about adding secondary beneficiaries and they said that I could not do it. I am in the process of setting up an individual account and transferring all the money from the joint account into the individual account. At that time I can put my wife as the primary beneficiary and add secondary beneficiaries.

If we kept the joint account and we both were killed in a car accident, the money would have to go to probate! No way to avoid it!

Does anyone know the reason why vanguard has this policy?

And it is not a small point! It could cost someone thousands of dollars if the vanguard account had to go through probate!
Yes. It's definitely not a small point given simultaneous death.

With your plan, I'm betting that if you do predecease your spouse, she will still have to name her own benficiaries (take care of the TOD stuff). Your secodary beneficiaries won't automatically become her primaries.

As to why Vanguard has this policy, I'm guessing that they just never got around to programming for anything else.