View, add, or remove beneficiaries

A beneficiary is the person, organization, or trust that will receive the money available in your accounts upon your passing. To ensure that your money goes to the right place, update your beneficiaries whenever you have a significant life change. Marriage, divorce, birth, or loss of a family member may require such an update.

Even with a will in place, there may be advantages to designating a beneficiary. Like most US financial institutions, UNFCU requires a will to be ‘probated.’ This means a court of law must accept it as a valid document before we can distribute funds. 

Probating a will can take time, and can be further complicated if you live outside the US. Since probating isn't needed for the beneficiary process, your account funds will be available sooner. 

Please note that UNFCU does not review wills. For other ways we can help you, please contact us.

Without a designated beneficiary, official legal documentation will be needed in order to claim the money available in your account. If it is not claimed within 36 months, we must transfer it to the State of New York.

You can designate a beneficiary for all of your deposit accounts. These include checking, savings, and share certificate accounts. 

You cannot designate a beneficiary for an account titled in the name of a revocable living trust. Please contact us for further assistance.

A joint account holder shares the account with the primary account holder. Joint account holders have the same rights and access to an account as the primary account holder. A joint account holder can designate beneficiaries to the account without authorization from the primary account holder. 

A beneficiary has no rights or access to your accounts. Beneficiaries can only receive the money in your accounts in the event of your passing. 

Beneficiaries can become joint account holders if you would like them to have access to your money before you pass. If your account already has a joint account holder, you do not need to designate them as a beneficiary. 

For more information on joint account holders, please view our joint deposit accounts FAQs.

Yes, you can certainly designate an organization or charity as your beneficiary. Simply provide the organization or charity name, contact person, tax ID number, and address. You may also need to provide additional details that identify the organization, like chapter or troop number.

Yes, you can designate a trust as your beneficiary. Simply provide details such as trust name, date of founding, trustee, and contact information.

No, you need to choose someone other than yourself as your beneficiary. Remember, your beneficiary will only receive the money available in your account in the event of your passing.

Only primary and joint owners of a deposit account can manage beneficiary updates using their unique Digital Banking credentials. 

Child/minor and organizational accounts are unable to process beneficiary updates via Digital Banking. Please contact us for assistance with those accounts.

Yes, you still need to submit a beneficiary form to UNFCU. Forms you have provided to other organizations will not cover your UNFCU accounts. UNFCU is a separate entity from the UN.

You can assign up to five beneficiaries via Digital Banking. To add more, please contact us. Available money will be distributed evenly between beneficiaries.

No, your beneficiaries do not have to be UNFCU members. However, if they are eligible for UNFCU membership, we recommend that they join. This will make it easier to transfer funds, especially during a difficult time.

We only disclose account information to authorized persons, such as a joint account holder or your power of attorney. If your beneficiaries are not authorized, we will not disclose any information to them.

Yes, you can certainly name different beneficiaries for each of your accounts. If you have multiple beneficiaries on one account, we will distribute the money evenly between them.

A legal guardian would need to complete certain required documents on behalf of the minor. We can then release the money. If the minor is a member of your family, such as your child or grandchild, they are eligible to have a child/minor account. We recommend that you open this account for them to simplify transfer, especially during a difficult time. 

Please contact us for more information.

You may want to tell your beneficiaries they are your designated beneficiaries. We will only contact your beneficiaries directly if we have their complete contact information, including: 

• Full name 
• Email address 
• Mailing address 

In the event of your passing, your beneficiaries can also email legalprocess@unfcu.com to reach our Legal Processing team.