{"id":40627,"date":"2026-01-30T10:10:19","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T16:10:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tamus.edu\/benefits\/?p=40627"},"modified":"2026-02-11T09:07:02","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T15:07:02","slug":"lincoln-financial-why-name-a-beneficiary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tamus.edu\/benefits\/lincoln-financial-why-name-a-beneficiary\/","title":{"rendered":"Lincoln Financial: Why name a beneficiary?"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t<div data-elementor-type=\"wp-post\" data-elementor-id=\"40627\" class=\"elementor elementor-40627\" data-elementor-post-type=\"post\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<section class=\"elementor-section elementor-top-section elementor-element elementor-element-515c014 elementor-section-boxed elementor-section-height-default elementor-section-height-default\" data-id=\"515c014\" data-element_type=\"section\" data-e-type=\"section\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-container elementor-column-gap-default\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-column elementor-col-100 elementor-top-column elementor-element elementor-element-0b795b5\" data-id=\"0b795b5\" data-element_type=\"column\" data-e-type=\"column\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-wrap elementor-element-populated\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-4e558d8 elementor-widget elementor-widget-text-editor\" data-id=\"4e558d8\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-e-type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"text-editor.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>After your death, your retirement plan assets pass to the beneficiaries named on your account. If you haven\u2019t named beneficiaries and don\u2019t have a spouse or children, your money may become part of your estate and go through probate.<\/p><p><strong>Avoid probate<\/strong><br \/>Probate is the administration of a deceased person\u2019s will or estate. It can cost hundreds to thousands of dollars in attorney fees, court costs, and filing expenses. If no heir is found, assets may become the property of the state where the deceased lived.<\/p><p>Wait, what? That\u2019s right. If you don\u2019t have an heir, your money might go to the state! You don\u2019t want that, and you don\u2019t want your loved ones dealing with the time, cost, and stress of probate while they\u2019re already coping with your loss. Designate a beneficiary now so your savings go where you intend.<\/p><p><strong>Keep in mind<\/strong><\/p><ul><li>Your beneficiary information doesn\u2019t carry over from other workplace benefits or other retirement accounts; you must name a beneficiary for every account.<\/li><li>You can designate more than one beneficiary, including parents, family, friends, charities, or colleges<\/li><li>You don\u2019t need someone\u2019s Social Security number to make them your beneficiary.<\/li><\/ul><p>The Texas A&amp;M University System is pleased to offer you one-on-one retirement plan help. Your plan is offered through Lincoln Financial. The A&amp;M System has engaged Lincoln retirement consultants and John Kriel from Kriel Financial Services LLC to help you achieve retirement readiness.<\/p><p><strong>Why Lincoln?<\/strong><br \/>Founded in 1905, Lincoln is a Fortune 500 company offering products and services to help people get financially prepared. Lincoln provides services for over 22,000 retirement plans and helps people confidently plan for their version of a successful future. Over 1.8 million retirement plan savers trust our solutions and service to put their goals in reach.<\/p><p><strong>Advantages for you<\/strong><\/p><ul><li>Contributions can be automatically deducted from your paycheck on a pretax basis (traditional) or after-tax basis (Roth).<\/li><li>Thanks to the power of compounding, any growth can help get you to your goal more quickly.<\/li><li>Choose from an array of investment options, including all-in-one diversified funds that help make it easy.<\/li><\/ul><p>To learn more about what Lincoln Financial can help you with, <a href=\"https:\/\/lincolnfinancial.com\/TAMUschedule\">schedule an appointment<\/a> with an advisor.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After your death, your retirement plan assets pass to the beneficiaries named on your account. If you haven\u2019t named beneficiaries and don\u2019t have a spouse or children, your money may become part of your estate and go through probate. Avoid probateProbate is the administration of a deceased person\u2019s will or estate. It can cost hundreds&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1971,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_kadence_starter_templates_imported_post":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-financial-wellness"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Lincoln Financial: Why name a beneficiary? - Benefits<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.tamus.edu\/benefits\/lincoln-financial-why-name-a-beneficiary\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Lincoln Financial: Why name a beneficiary? - Benefits\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"After your death, your retirement plan assets pass to the beneficiaries named on your account. If you haven\u2019t named beneficiaries and don\u2019t have a spouse or children, your money may become part of your estate and go through probate. Avoid probateProbate is the administration of a deceased person\u2019s will or estate. 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