What Happens to My Bank of America Money If I Die? - YouTube

do you want to know what happens to  your bank of America money when you die  

then you're in the right place.

since i've been in my 50s i paid a lot  more attention to estate planning issues  

i plan on living for many more years but i'm  also a realist we will all one day die we can  

either try to take control of how we die or we  can leave it up to others i've also seen and  

heard about other people about how they dealt with  money issues after someone dies and i can tell you  

it isn't a pretty sight nor is it a pretty story  when there is no plan in place the people left  

behind are left with stress confusion and general  chaos that chaos causes a lot of infighting and  

unnecessary friction and this is why the issue  of estate planning is important to me and why  

it might also be important to you so this is a  general rule whether you know it or not everyone  

has an estate plan for most people you have one of  two estate plans you have an estate plan in which  

you created and had an active role in or you're  going to let the state you live and decide how  

they disperse your money and assets either way  everyone has an estate plan it's all your choice  

i know what you're thinking you're thinking  that i'm going to preach about having a will  

but believe it or not i'm not going to talk about  the will except that i think it's a good idea  

and that this video is not the time and place  to discuss wills however i am going to discuss  

something way more simpler as it relates to  your bank of america money and that simple idea  

is having a pod form a pod form stands for payable  on death form it's available to customers at most  

financial institutions however most people don't  know about it until they ask about it normally i  

would give a short explanation of how pod forms  work and the concept of beneficiaries but in the  

case of bank of america they have conveniently  created a web page which covers a lot of what  

i'm going to discuss so what i'm going to do is  pull up the bank of america beneficiaries page  

and review it with you this bank of america faq  page is dedicated to the topic of beneficiaries  

and pods this page is available to anyone on  the internet you don't have to have a bank of  

america account to read this page so starting out  when you get to the bank of america page you're  

going to have a list of questions however if you  click your mouse on the arrow heads you will see  

that the questions will expand into answers of the  individual questions the first question is what is  

a payable on death beneficiary a pod beneficiary  is an individual group of individuals non-profit  

company organization or trust other than the  owner or co-owner designated by the owners of the  

account to receive the balance of funds when the  last owner on the account passes away essentially  

a pod beneficiary is someone that you would  appoint to get your money after you die i say  

that in the context that you're the only owner of  that bank account however it is entirely possible  

that you can share an account with someone  else in the event that you die the remaining  

owner of that account would assume control  of your money the next question shown here  

is who can be a pod beneficiary for most of us  a pod beneficiary is going to be someone we know  

it's going to be a spouse significant other  a family member a relative or even a friend  

the next question is what information do i need  to add a pod beneficiary what bank of america  

wants is a first and last name a date of birth the  country of citizenship a social security number  

and a complete address the information that bank  of america is asking for is common to the other  

financial institutions that i've seen the next  question is can i have multiple beneficiaries and  

the answer is yes there is no limit to the number  of pod beneficiaries allowed on an account each  

pod will receive an equal share of the assets in  an account at the time of the passing of the last  

owner on the account bank of america provides the  example is that if you list four pod beneficiaries  

each individual will receive 25% of the funds  the next question bank of america lists here  

is what accounts can have pod beneficiaries and  the answer is that it's going to apply to almost  

any account that you would normally have at a bank  it would include a checking savings cd account  

ira account and an investment account and the  last question listed here is how do i change my  

pod beneficiaries or add a new one how i'm going  to answer this is that i'm going to actually show  

you the screenshots of how to do this later on in  this video so as a quick review a pod beneficiary  

is pretty much anyone you would want to appoint  to receive your money after you die so whether  

you have a checking account savings account  investment account or retirement account you  

assign beneficiaries to each and every account now  i'm going to do a quick sidebar on apportionments  

an apportionment is the dividing up of the  monies in an account bank of america states that  

by default they're just going to equally divide  whatever money that is left into the account and  

disperse it to the beneficiaries however you  should know that many financial institutions  

do allow for customized apportionments  for example you may want to apportion 50%  

of the money in that account to one person  then you may want to apportion 30 percent  

of the money in that account to a second  person and then apportion 20% of the money  

in that account to a third person when you  add up the 50 percent, 30 percent, and 20%  

it totals 100 percent and they are unequal  shares in the case of bank of america going  

through their online form you're not going  to be able to do customized apportionments  

and that's something you should be aware of and  this is a second sidebar keep in mind i'm not an  

estate lawyer i'm only bringing this up so that  you can look into the matter further in the case  

of a spouse and you live in a community property  state it may not be possible for you to leave out  

monies for your spouse they may be automatically  entitled to 50 of the monies of that account  

even if you leave their names off now there  doesn't have to be anything nefarious about this  

different people think about their monies and  their accounts in different ways a person may  

want to assign one account where all the monies  go to the spouse and they may have yet another  

account where they would want all the money to go  to the children and because of this simple example  

if you do plan on leaving out a spouse and you  live in a community property state this is an  

issue you may want to check into for any other  situations without a spouse your chosen or default  

apportionments should stand but let's get back to  bank of america and how they deal with pods and  

beneficiaries i have to say i really really like  how bank of america handles pods and beneficiaries  

and the reason why i like it so much is that  you don't have to deal with a paper form with  

bank of america and if you have online banking  you can do it all from the comfort of your home  

and you don't have to deal with scanning and  signing a form more recently with bbnt now  

converted to truest bank i had to go into a branch  and wait for someone to change my form it was not  

a fun process and it was a time-consuming process  they wanted me to physically come in and check my  

id before i could do anything now i understand  why bbnt and truest bank wanted me to come in  

but i have to tell you i really much prefer bank  of america's online system so what i'm going to do  

now is do a quick run through the bank of america  online system on how to set up a pod and assign  

beneficiaries the first thing we're going to  assume is that you're a bank of america customer  

and you have online banking activated first we're  going to go to the home page and on the left side  

you will see where you have to type in your online  id and password in order to sign in once you sign  

in you will see a list of accounts that you have  with bank of america to preserve the privacy of  

the account holder i redacted a lot of information  on this screen so in this example with this  

list of accounts i click on the first checking  account but i could just as well have clicked any  

other account you're going to see that it's very  familiar regardless of which account you click on  

once you click into the account screen what you're  looking for is the information and services tab  

once you click into the information and services  tab you're going to scroll down into the account  

features section under account features  you should see a listing for beneficiaries  

you click manage to go into the next screen once  you click the manage link it should take you to  

your beneficiaries screen you should see a list  of accounts in which you can add a beneficiary  

update a beneficiary or remove a beneficiary the  nice thing about this is that you don't have to  

deal with paper forms you can do it right there  from the convenience of your home so what i'm  

going to do now is assume that you have your  list of bank of america accounts but you have  

not added a beneficiary so once you click on add  a beneficiary this is a screen you're going to see  

for most people you're going to assign a  beneficiary to an individual it's pretty  

straightforward if you look at the screen you'll  see the first name middle name which is optional  

last name you put in the date of birth there's  a button to add a street address you select the  

country of citizenship and you put in the social  security number before you save the beneficiary  

information to that particular account you should  read the notice please make a note or print  

what you've entered about each beneficiary  for your records in order to protect this  

sensitive information we will only display your  beneficiaries names when you review or make  

updates your pod beneficiary must be complete and  accurate to be legally binding by clicking save i  

authorize for myself and other account holders  that this information is correct and that i  

agree to the beneficiary addendum notice now most  people will probably save the information without  

reading the beneficiary addendum notice but in  the interest of being complete i am displaying  

the beneficiary addendum notice it's actually  a pretty short read it says that i acknowledge  

and understand that by establishing a pod account  under the provisions of the applicable state law  

number one during my lifetime i may withdraw the  money in the account number two i may change the  

beneficiaries at any time and number three upon  my death the money remaining in the account  

will belong to the then surviving beneficiaries in  equal shares and will not be inherited by my heirs  

or controlled by my will i think this beneficiary  addendum notice is very good because it reinforces  

the fact that you can control what happens to the  money after your death without the need for a will  

in fact the statement says that the pod  will override any will that you might have  

now one thing i like about pods is that you  can change your mind at any time and when  

you do change your mind it doesn't cost you money  unlike a will if you have to make changes to will  

it's a little bit more complicated but changing  a beneficiary adding a beneficiary or removing  

a beneficiary can be done very easily especially  if you're with bank of america so when you enter  

the update your beneficiary screen you will see  it's nearly identical to the ad beneficiary screen  

the statement of what you agreed to when you  added a beneficiary is still applicable when  

you change the beneficiary it's the same exact  verbiage with the same beneficiary addendum notice  

so what do you think about pods beneficiaries and  bank of america i'd like to know what you think  

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out this next video that i've recommended  for you and i will see you in my next video