Maria, a retiree in Sarasota, spent good money on a Florida revocable trust naming her two children equally. She passed away last spring confident everything was handled. It wasn’t. Her largest asset, a $400,000 IRA, still named her late first husband as beneficiary, with no contingent named. The account didn’t follow her trust. It went through a default plan provision and triggered a probate fight no one expected.
Maria’s story is the single most common gap I see in Florida estate plans. People assume their will or trust controls everything. For a large slice of their wealth, it doesn’t.
Why the Form Beats the Will
In Florida, assets that pass by beneficiary designation, often called non-probate or pay-on-death assets, bypass your will and the probate process under Chapters 731 to 735 of the Florida Probate Code entirely. Life insurance, IRAs, 401(k)s, annuities, and payable-on-death (POD) or transfer-on-death (TOD) accounts go to whoever is named on the contract, period. A beautifully drafted will saying “everything to my children equally” does nothing to override a 1998 insurance form naming your ex-spouse.
This is not a loophole. It is how these contracts are designed to work, and it is why the designation is the detail that quietly controls so much of an estate.
The Florida Wrinkles That Trip People Up
A few Florida-specific points matter. First, Florida has no state estate or inheritance tax, so the concern here is not state tax, it is making sure the right person actually receives the money. Second, Florida Statutes section 732.703 automatically voids the designation of an ex-spouse on certain assets after a divorce judgment, but this does not cover everything, including many federally governed retirement plans. Never rely on the statute to clean up a stale form. Update it yourself.
Third, naming a minor child directly is a frequent mistake. A Florida insurer will not hand a six-figure check to a teenager. The funds may require a court-supervised guardianship of the property, an expensive and slow process. Naming your trust as beneficiary, or using a custodial arrangement, usually serves the child far better.
When the Trust Should Be the Beneficiary
For families using a revocable trust under Chapter 736, coordination is everything. If you build a trust to protect a child with special needs, manage funds for a spendthrift heir, or stage distributions over time, but then name that child directly on your IRA, the money skips the trust and lands in their lap with none of those protections. The plan exists only on paper.
I tell clients to treat beneficiary designations as part of the plan, not a side errand. Pull every account statement, every insurance policy, and every annuity contract, and confirm the primary and contingent beneficiaries match your intent. The contingent beneficiary is what saved nothing in Maria’s case, because she never named one.
A Simple Review Habit
Beneficiary designations should be reviewed after every major life event: a marriage, a divorce, a birth, a death, or moving to Florida from another state. They should also be checked when you sign or amend a trust, because the two must work together. A fifteen-minute review with current paperwork prevents the kind of outcome that cost Maria’s children both money and peace.
This article is general information about Florida law and not legal advice for your situation. Beneficiary coordination depends on the specific accounts you own and how your plan is structured. Speak with a licensed Florida estate planning attorney to review your designations and make sure they actually carry out your wishes.
For more on our Florida practice, see our overview of powers of attorney in Florida. Morgan Legal Group's affiliated New York office also handles New York probate and estate administration.