Your beneficiary designation determines who inherits your IRA — and it takes priority over what your will says, so keeping it current matters.

You can name or update beneficiaries directly in your online account under account settings. Retired.com recommends reviewing your beneficiary designations after any major life event — marriage, divorce, birth of a child, or the death of a named beneficiary.

You can name one or more primary beneficiaries, who inherit the account first, and one or more contingent beneficiaries, who inherit only if no primary beneficiary survives you. You can split the account across multiple beneficiaries in any percentage you choose, as long as the percentages for each tier add up to 100%.

A beneficiary designation on an IRA is a contractual instruction to the custodian and generally takes priority over instructions in a will. This is a common source of confusion — updating your will does not update who inherits your IRA. If you want your IRA to go somewhere different from what your will says, you need to update the beneficiary designation directly.

You can name a trust as a beneficiary, but trust-as-beneficiary designations have specific IRS requirements that affect how required distributions to the trust are calculated after your death. We recommend consulting a tax advisor or attorney before naming a trust as a beneficiary to make sure the trust is structured to qualify for the tax treatment you expect.

A surviving spouse who is the sole primary beneficiary has options not available to other beneficiaries, including the ability to treat the inherited IRA as their own. Non-spouse beneficiaries are generally subject to different distribution timelines. We recommend consulting a tax advisor or attorney to understand the options available to your specific beneficiaries.

What happens if I don't name a beneficiary?
Your IRA passes according to Digital Trust's default beneficiary provisions — Digital Trust is the custodian for your account — which typically follow a hierarchy (spouse, then children, then estate). Naming a beneficiary directly gives you control instead of relying on the default.

Can I change my beneficiary without my spouse's consent?
This depends on your state's marital property laws and, in some cases, the account type. Contact the Service Team, and consult an attorney if you have questions about spousal rights in your state.

How do I remove a beneficiary who has passed away?
Update your beneficiary designation in your online account, or contact the Service Team for assistance. Retired.com recommends doing this promptly to avoid delays for your other named beneficiaries later.

Select "Start a Conversation" from the Chat menu or call us at 1-800-RETIRED