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How to add or change beneficiaries and contingent beneficiaries

Need to add or remove a beneficiary from your will? Here's a step-by-step guide to updating who inherits your estate in your Willful account.

Beneficiaries are the people or organizations who will inherit from your estate. You can update your beneficiaries at any time in your Willful account to reflect life changes, new relationships, or changes in your wishes.

A contingent beneficiary is an ultimate backup who will receive your estate only if all other named beneficiaries have predeceased you. You can appoint as many contingent beneficiaries as you like, and if this situation arises, everyone listed will share your estate equally.

Steps to add or edit beneficiaries

Step 1: Navigate to your estate allocations:

  1. Log into your Willful account

  2. Select Menu in the top right

  3. Click Edit your will

  4. Scroll to Step 3: Your estate

Step 2: Edit beneficiaries/Your Estate Allocations

You will be prompted to add, remove, or update beneficiaries as needed.

  • Willful saves all names of family members and appointees (such as guardians, executors, and previous beneficiaries) in a reusable contacts list.

  • If you are changing your beneficiaries, you may select an existing contact or click on Add new to assign a new beneficiary.

  • You can choose to Add a person or Add a charity as a beneficiary.

Step 3: Set beneficiary percentages

When adding beneficiaries, Willful will initially divide your estate equally. To customize the distribution:

  • Add all beneficiaries first.

  • Then manually type in the percentage you’d like each beneficiary to receive.

Step 4: Decide what happens if a beneficiary passes away before you

When allocating your estate, you'll be asked what should happen if a beneficiary passes away before you. You have three options:

  1. Go directly to their children: Their share passes to their children if they have any at the time you pass away. If your beneficiary does not have children at that time, their share would be split amongst the other beneficiaries. If your beneficiary has a child, but the child has also passed away, that child's share would pass on to any of their children, and if they did not have any children, it would be split amongst the other beneficiaries.

  2. Divide among other beneficiaries: Their share is redistributed among your remaining beneficiaries.

  3. Specify for each beneficiary: Set a different plan for each person individually. For each person you can choose:

    1. Given directly to their children

    2. Divide evenly among other beneficiaries

    3. Given to specific beneficiaries: you name specific people or charities to receive their share and set the percentage each one receives.

Note: "Specify for each beneficiary" is only available for people, not charities. Your will already covers what happens if a named charity closes, merges, or changes its name.

If you only have one beneficiary, you'll see two options: "Go directly to their children" and "Specify for each beneficiary." To open up "Divide among the other beneficiaries" as an option, you'll need at least two secondary beneficiaries.

Step 5: Appoint contingent beneficiaries (optional)

  1. Find the Contingent Beneficiary section.

  2. Click the blue Edit button next to it.

  3. Add or update your contingent beneficiaries from your saved contacts, or create new ones.

Reminder: Don't forget to download and/or print, then sign and witness your updated will for the changes to be legally valid.

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