Do I have to be a named beneficiary of a life policy?

€urofile

Or can I avoid receiving the money which would go direct to my children.

RAS

You'd need to discuss with the policy provider.

You also need to be very careful if you receive means-tested benefits as it would be deprivation of assets. Even if you didn't have the money, your future benefit entitlement would assume the money was available and you'd end up with neither the policy or the benefits.

Alderbank

Well you can't avoid being a named beneficiary, because naming the beneficiary (or beneficiaries) is something the policyholder does when taking out the policy. No-one will ask if it is OK with you.

The money does not come automatically to you. The insurance company will write to you and invite you to fill out a form to claim the money, and they will also carry out some checks to assure themselves that you are the intended beneficiary (eg sometimes a father and son have the same name and the same address).
You can avoid receiving the money simply by not claiming it. If the policyholder has named a contingency benefactor the money you refused will go to them. If there is no contingency benefactor then the money will go into the policyholder's estate for distribution along with all the other assets.

The policyholder can change their beneficiaries anytime, as much and as often as they like. You could ask them to change it to your children. However if any beneficiaries are minors (under 18) their share of the money will need to go into a trust for them. If your children the money would be paid to you to hold in trust for them.

What is your purpose in doing this? After all the simplest thing to do is to do nothing, if one day you get an insurance payment you can then just gift it to your children or anyone else however you wish.

Is it some kind of wheeze to dodge some kind of benefit repayments or taxes? If so remember that others will have thought of this before you and there is probably a mechanism in place to thwart you.

dunstonh

Life assurance policies do not name a beneficiary unless they are placed in trust or set up with the beneficiary being a joint policyholder.

The beneficiary of a trust can be changed if it is a flexible trust but not if it is an absolute trust.    Do you know what the trust is?