TSP: You do not have to designate a beneficiary if... (estate, title)

[lpc123]

I wanted to share this since the new TSP website is constantly nagging me to designate a beneficiary, even though it is not required unless you have specific instructions that are different than the existing "pecking order."


You may be wondering what "pecking order"?



If you die with a balance in your TSP account and did not designate beneficiaries for that account, the account will be distributed according to the following order of precedence required by law:

1. To your spouse
2. If none, to your child or children equally, with the share due any deceased child divided equally among that child’s descendants
3. If none, to your parents equally or to your surviving parent
4. If none, to the appointed executor or administrator of your estate
5. If none, to your next of kin who is entitled to your estate under the laws of the state in which you resided at the time of your death

This is explained by TSP here.


If you do not want this order of preference, then by all means designate a beneficiary. It would be nice if they would just list this information on the login page rather than "warn" users to do something they may not want or need.

[Seguinite]

That irritated me, too... and I was an early hater of most of the new website. Be happy they don't make you send them a notarized designation form anyway.

[Seguinite]

Rant on... I was looking at the TSP website Tuesday morning with spouse looking over my shoulder, and it plainly showed her as 'not a beneficiary'. Because I hadn't designated her as one, since they very clearly state in myriad places on the website and in booklets that it's not necessary because they pay 'by law' unless otherwise designated. Let's just say she wasn't as confident as I was that everything was fine.

So I designated her, and now she shows as the 100% only beneficiary... which she already was by default.

Several minutes afterward, I got an email 'from TSP' wanting me to verify the changes that I'd made to my contact information. Well, damnit, I didn't make changes to my contact information... I designated a beneficiary... which is a completely different operation.

So this morning I logged in just to make SURE my contact information hadn't changed. And then I tried to send a message through the secure mailbox (to tell them the website is horrible)... which isn't an option. So I tried to figure out how to contact them some way other then calling, and the only piece of the 'customer service' action page that actually does anything other than spin is 'upload documents'.

All this to say, again, that whoever designed this website should be ashamed. Without question, it is the single worst site I deal with as a retiree. I do feel a wee bit better after all this typing.

[Okey Dokie]

One thing to consider, if you don’t designate a beneficiary, your spouse may have to jump through additional hoops to prove they are legally your spouse. (I have a marriage certificate, but it’s not a certified copy, and I bet that’s what they would want.). But if your beneficiary is “Mary lpc123” then that’s all she has to prove.

[Seguinite]

Originally Posted by Okey Dokie

One thing to consider, if you don’t designate a beneficiary, your spouse may have to jump through additional hoops to prove they are legally your spouse. (I have a marriage certificate, but it’s not a certified copy, and I bet that’s what they would want.). But if your beneficiary is “Mary lpc123” then that’s all she has to prove.

That's a fair point... but I'm pretty sure we had to prove that to them already.



And just to throw this out, hang on to old marriage certificates if you're divorced. When my bride was getting a Nebraska driver license, her Texas Real ID license wasn't good enough to prove that she was who she was. Even though Texas had already verified that she was her for Real ID purposes, Nebraska made her send away for a certified birth certificate (which she'd never had), a certified copy of her first marriage certificate, AND a copy of that 1988 divorce decree.