Nominating beneficiaries in event of death

[Metherdick]

If you are married with children under 18, on making a will/nominating beneficiaries is it usual to leave everything to your spouse? Just thinking, in the event of my death, if everything went to my husband, he could be quite wealthy. If he remarried, my children might end up not benefitting at all, particularly if he had more children. Of course, we'd all like to think we can trust our husbands to act responsibly, but many men do end up leaving everything to a second wife. How has anyone else handled this (so protecting some money for the children so they would at least be financially set up, having lost their mum, with leaving their partner in a comfortable place to continue to bring them up?)?

I trust my DH to look after our kids, including financially. If you think about it, hopefully he won’t die until they’re ?40,?50? so it’s not really an issue. Conversely, if I died today, leaving my DH to cope with mortgage and childcare without my salary, he’d really struggle financially - or he would if I hadn’t made sure we have life insurance that covers childcare and mortgage.

If I wanted them to have a lump sum put away for when they’re 18 or something I’d take out extra life insurance that only pays out if I die while they’re still young.

It might be different if my DH wasn’t their dad though. Lots of people protect their children in their will in that case.

I did have my DC nominated as beneficiaries for my pension but changed this to DH when we got married, I do understand your point but felt it would be simpler and if I were to die when my DC were young my DH would need all the financial help he could get.

My parents (both in their late 60s) recently changed their home ownership status from joint tenants to tenants in common. I believe part of the reason was that if one were to die, their half would come to us as children instead of to the other party and that was partly to protect against the entire house being taken for care fees but also by any potential second spouse.

which country are you in?

England. I think the thing is, if the money left would be only enough or not enough to continue to provide the children with the same standard of living then it's a no-brainer to leave everything to the spouse. If there is more than enough I guess that is where it gets tricky, as that could provide for house deposits etc in the future that might be jeopardised by a remarriage. And with things you read from step mums about the set up of existing vs new children it does make you worry! My husband would look after my children too in the event but I don't think it is as cut and dried as that. My parents divorced, they were always big savers and my step mum is a big spender. Obviously it is his half to do as he wants with, but I think I would feel differently if my mum had died and it was all their money that they scrimped and saved for. It isn't what she would have wanted for it and I feel the same about my own money and my children. But, if my husband said the same (to hold back money from me, for the kids), I'd feel a bit strange. Is this legitimately different for mums and dads, men are more likely to remarry, more likely to marry someone less well off than themselves, more likely to be financially secure if they were widowed. Probably more likely to have more children. I feel the usual set up (leave everything to your partner) doesn't take that into account.

Ah right, it's slightly different to my in Scotland then. Your cannot disinherit your children here!

I think this is really interesting and it’s a mark of how different people see inheritance.

Here’s how I see it:
If I live until I’m 80, and my kids are 50 when I die, I won’t feel bad if they don’t inherit anything. It would be nice if they do but by that time my assets may well have gone on care home fees or similar. And I would expect them to be financially independent by 50!
So, feeling like this, if I die when I’m 40 and my DH lives until he’s 80 and then leaves second wife everything, it doesn’t really bother me?
This assumes that in both scenarios we help our children to adulthood in the normal way to the best of our financial ability.

When you talk about house deposits, I think maybe you are thinking of gifts when the children are in their mid twenties or so. And I agree I’d love to help my kids at that point and I hope my DH would too... but we’d be 55 and hopefully some way away from not only one but both of us dying!! To protect against the risk of your DH not doing that, life insurance that pays out at around that time would be MUCH cheaper than savings and then ringfencing it in a will (which is exactly what we’ve done - if one of us dies before the kids are that age, there’s a payout to help with childcare and gifts like this up to mid twenties).

DH didn't leave a will, but he split his pension death benefit between me, DS and DSS. I got 50% and the boys got 25% each. I inherited everything else, all his money, the house, his other pensions, and I draw a widow's pension from his occupational pension. My own will leaves everything to DS apart from 25% of my pension death benefit that will go to my sister (originally set up as 50% for DH, 25% for DS and 25% to Dsis as she was a child at the time), but I know for certain that I won't remarry.

The idea of the payout when the children reach their 20s is a good one. I totally agree that it is different if you are talking about death in old, I was thinking about if I was to die before my kids were set up in life I guess.

It'd be interesting to know how Scotland Dr with this one then, what if you die while your children are still dependent on your spouse. I guess this leads into the question of whether it is possible to leave any non joint assets in a trust. So the husband could spend it on things to benefit the children, eg holidays, bigger car, university. But not on a £10k engagement ring for the new wife

Death in old age...