“To the person I am married to at the time of my death”

[Peter Gulia]

Before Vanguard exited its “Individual 401(k)” business, Vanguard sent a customer a “beneficiary verification” that included this information:

Beneficiary                  To the person I am married to at the time of my death

Backup Beneficiary     Benjamin Brother 50% / Roberta Relativebyaffinity 50%

Here’s what I don’t know:

Could the lingo “To the person I am married to at the time of my death” have resulted from Vanguard recording exactly what the participant typed in the website?

Or had a participant tried to type in that phrase, would Vanguard’s system have rejected the entry because it was too many characters or because it seemed not to be a name?

Did Vanguard set up that lingo as a programmed choice a user could click on?

Did Vanguard set up that lingo as a plug-in for a situation in which the participant declined to name a beneficiary and Vanguard’s records about a participant showed the participant as having a spouse?

In the circumstances I’m advising about, whether “To the person I am married to at the time of my death” resulted from the participant’s considered writing (which might be plausible because the participant had filed a divorce petition, and was lawyer-advised), or partly or wholly because of something Vanguard set up might matter in how the retirement plan’s administrator interprets the participant’s “backup” or contingent beneficiary designation.

BenefitsLink neighbors, thank you for your gracious help.

[blguest]

Believe it or not Peter, that's a Vanguard choice their lawyers must have made after partying too hard. See:

https://investor.vanguard.com/investor-resources-education/beneficiaries/adding-beneficiaries-to-ira

[Peter Gulia]

blguest, thank you for pointing me to a Vanguard explanation that tends to confirm some of my educated-guess suspicion.

It seems Vanguard permits an IRA holder (and might have permitted an “Individual 401(k)” participant) to specify a spouse beneficiary without a name, instead specifying the relationship.

(Vanguard explains that such a designation might guard against some potential consequences of an IRA holder’s failure to change one’s beneficiary designation.)

[AlbanyConsultant]

Very bold to assume I'm only married to one person... ! 😁

[Peter Gulia]

Vanguard’s programmed click-on “To the person I am married to at the time of my death” might help an IRA holder guard against one’s forgetting to change a beneficiary designation.

It’s astonishing that Vanguard Fiduciary Trust Company seems willing to accept the burden of receiving and evaluating evidence about whether an IRA holder was married and to whom she was married.