You’ve carefully considered your estate plan, and decided it’s important to avoid probate. One way to accomplish that: use beneficiary designations to direct assets to named beneficiaries. But don’t forget the importance of maintaining those beneficiary designations over time.

Understand that there are effects of your simplified estate planning. One point to consider: maintaining your beneficiary designations is key to keeping your plan current. And don’t be surprised if we tell you that you might want to rethink the very idea of your beneficiary designations.

Too often we see clients who think they can set the beneficiary designations and forget about them. But as your assets change, and your family dynamics shift, those probate-avoidance techniques can skew your planning. That’s why you have to constantly work to maintain those beneficiary designations.

Sometimes the beneficiary designations themselves are a problem. If, for example, you name your four children as beneficiaries on your home, you’ve avoided probate. But you’ve also made your four children involuntary partners in everything from utility payments to decisions about selling, to managing for rental income. And if they don’t agree, the beneficiary designation might have saved probate costs but incurred terrific financial and emotional costs in operation of the property.