Update Beneficiaries After Divorce in New Hampshire

If you die tomorrow, who gets your 401(k)? For a lot of newly divorced people in New Hampshire, the honest answer is: their ex-spouse. Not because the decree said so. Because a beneficiary form signed years ago was never changed, and the law that would have fixed it does not reach the account.

This is the single most expensive oversight in the entire post-divorce process, and it takes about thirty minutes to close.

Does Divorce Automatically Change Beneficiaries? Partly — and the Gap Is Dangerous

New Hampshire does revoke some things automatically. Under RSA 551:5, once your final decree is entered, your will and revocable trust operate as if your ex-spouse had predeceased you — revocable gifts to them, and any nomination of them as executor or trustee, are cut out. State law also automatically revokes their role in your advance medical directive.

So people assume the same thing happens to their retirement and insurance beneficiaries. It does not.

State automatic-revocation statutes stop at the edge of anything governed by federal ERISA — and that covers your 401(k), 403(b), and employer pension. This is not a technicality. It decides who gets the money.

The Egelhoff Trap: ERISA Pays Whoever Is on the Form

The U.S. Supreme Court settled this in Egelhoff v. Egelhoff. ERISA preempts state revocation-on-divorce laws for employer plans. The plan administrator is legally required to pay the person named on the beneficiary form on file — full stop.

That means:

• Your decree can award you every penny of your own 401(k).
• Your new will can leave everything to your children.
• And if your ex-spouse is still listed on the 401(k) beneficiary form, the plan must pay your ex when you die. The decree and the will do not override the form.

Courts have enforced this result over and over, sending retirement money to ex-spouses because a form was never updated. Do not rely on your divorce to fix it. Update the form yourself.

The Forms to Change by Hand — Today

Contact each plan administrator and each insurer and file a new beneficiary designation. Do not skip any of these:

• 401(k), 403(b), and employer pension — the highest-risk accounts. Get the beneficiary-change form from your plan administrator or HR, name your new beneficiary, and confirm in writing that it was processed.
• Life insurance — a conventional policy is not ERISA, and New Hampshire's revocation law may apply under Sveen v. Melin, which upheld state automatic-revocation for insurance. But relying on default law invites delay and disputes. Update the form and remove any ambiguity.
• IRA (traditional and Roth) — update the custodian's beneficiary designation directly.
• Pay-on-death and transfer-on-death accounts — bank CDs, brokerage accounts, and savings accounts often carry a POD/TOD designation. These pass outside your will. Update them at the institution.
• Health savings accounts and annuities — often overlooked, same rule applies.

A note on new beneficiaries: if you want to name minor children directly, talk to an estate attorney first. Minors cannot receive large sums outright, and naming them without a trust or custodial arrangement can force the money into a court-supervised process. Sometimes the cleaner move is to name a trust as beneficiary.

Two-Minute Audit

Pull every account and policy and ask one question of each: who is named right now? Write it down. Anywhere your ex-spouse still appears, file the change immediately and keep the confirmation.

Then set a calendar reminder to re-check in ninety days. Some administrators are slow, and a change you submitted is not done until the record actually shows it.

For readers outside New Hampshire: the ERISA rule from Egelhoff is federal and applies everywhere — your state's automatic-revocation law never reaches an employer retirement plan. The specific state statute (here, RSA 551:5) only governs wills and non-ERISA assets.

Where Beneficiaries Fit in the Sequence

Updating beneficiaries is one task in a long administrative rebuild — running alongside your will and estate-plan update, your QDRO, and your name change.

The New Hampshire After-Divorce Checklist includes a beneficiary-audit worksheet that lists every account type, flags which ones are ERISA plans you must update by hand, and tracks the date each change was confirmed — so the highest-leverage thirty minutes of your post-divorce life does not get lost in the pile.

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