executor

You will also need to name an executor of your estate.

An executor could also be personally liable for making a decision which no reasonable executor would.

You wrote that one of the disadvantages to these accounts is that an estate’s executor might have to try to get money back from beneficiaries or pay expenses out of their own pocket if there wasn’t enough money left in the estate to pay the bills.

If you were counting on an account to pay final expenses but forgot you named a beneficiary, your executor probably couldn’t access those funds.

“Once you understand that change is a norm, then you can become more comfortable in being the executor—the executor of change for yourself in your life,” Wood said, “instead of waiting for somebody to push you out the plane.”