Beneficiaries
Did you know that under Australian law, super isn’t covered in your will?
So it’s important to make sure beneficiaries are nominated for your super in the event of your death.
Beneficiaries can be;
- ●dependents
- ●someone in an interdependency relationship with you
- ●your Legal Personal Representative (LPR).
Dependents are defined as;
- ●your spouse or de facto partner
- ●your children
- ●someone who relies on you to meet or help to meet daily living expenses
- ●a person who lives with you in a close personal relationship and depends on you financially.
A Legal Personal Representative (LPR) is the name given to the representative of an estate at law. If there is a will, this person is the executor. Where there is no will, the LPR is the administrator of the estate appointed by the court.
Two types of beneficiary nominations
1. Non-binding nominations
This nominates who you prefer to receive your super. The Trustee will take your nomination into account, but is not legally bound to follow it.
This is fairly easy to set up - it’s one form that you sign.
2. Binding nominations
This nomination gives you more certainty of who will receive your super. The Trustee must pay your super to the person(s) you have nominated if you have a valid binding nomination in place.
There is an extra step to set up a binding nomination as you will need to have witnesses for your form.
For Engineering Super, both types do not expire.
So it’s up to you to keep them up-to-date, for example if you divorce, re-marry, have a child, have additional children etc and want to change your beneficiaries.
Cancelling & updating beneficiaries
You can cancel a beneficiary nomination (removing all persons) via the ‘Cancellation of Beneficiary Nomination Form’.
If you want to update your nomination, you should complete a new ‘Beneficiary Nomination Form”. You should include all the beneficiaries you want (not just new beneficiaries), as this will automatically override a previous nomination.