A Lakewood widow updates her will to leave everything equally to her three children, then passes away — and her largest asset, a retirement account, goes entirely to the eldest son named on a form she filled out decades ago. The will never had a say.
Scenes like this are common because beneficiary designations, transfer-on-death forms, and joint titling override a will. They are the quiet machinery of an estate plan, and they are almost never reviewed after they are first signed.
This page covers the assets that skip your will, the classic Colorado traps, and a practical review that brings everything back into alignment.
The assets that skip your will entirely
Retirement accounts, life insurance, and annuities pass by beneficiary designation. Bank and brokerage accounts with payable-on-death or transfer-on-death instructions pass by those instructions. Jointly titled property passes to the surviving owner. In Colorado, even your home can pass outside probate through a beneficiary deed recorded with the county.
Each tool is useful — they move assets quickly and privately. The danger is that they operate independently of your will and of each other. An estate plan is not really the will in your drawer; it is the sum of every designation, title, and deed you have ever signed, working together or quietly contradicting one another.
The classic traps, and who falls into them
The patterns repeat across Colorado families. Divorce is the biggest: Colorado law generally revokes designations in favor of a former spouse, but certain employer plans follow federal rules that can still pay an ex unless the form is changed. Remarriage, new children, and deaths create similar mismatches between the form on file and the life you actually live.
Other traps are structural. Naming a minor child directly can force a court-supervised conservatorship. Naming your estate can forfeit tax advantages and drag the asset into probate. Failing to name contingent beneficiaries means one death out of order unravels the plan.
- An ex-spouse still named on a retirement account or life insurance policy
- No contingent beneficiary, so the asset defaults to the estate if the primary dies first
- A minor child named outright, triggering court involvement to manage the money
- Designations that contradict the will or trust signed years later
- A trust-based plan whose accounts and deeds were never actually retitled
The review: a checklist worth an afternoon
A proper review inventories every account, policy, and deed; pulls the actual designation on file with each institution rather than what you remember; and checks each one against your current will or trust. Families are routinely surprised by what turns up — accounts from long-ago employers, forms naming deceased parents, a beneficiary deed nobody recalls recording.
The free Colorado Estate Snapshot at /estate-snapshot is built for exactly this: a structured look at what you own, how it is titled, and where the mismatches are. Bring the results to a free Legacy Game Plan Session and the attorney will tailor the fixes to your plan as a whole.
