Keep Your Beneficiary Designations Up-to-Date

What is a beneficiary?

A beneficiary is someone you designate to receive insurance benefits that are payable upon your death. Naming beneficiaries ensures that your assets are distributed according to your wishes.

Keep your beneficiary designations up-to-date

You may change your beneficiary designations at any time. It is important to review your beneficiary designations regularly, especially when you have experienced a life event; birth or adoption of a child, marriage, divorce, etc.

Your assets are distributed according to the beneficiary designations that you have on file at the time of your death. If you are unsure of your current beneficiary designation for any of your current insurance plans, complete a new beneficiary designation form to ensure that your designations are current.

How do I know what benefits I have?

To make sure that you review and update the beneficiaries for all of your insurance plans, confirm your current plan enrollments. Log in to the MyUW portal. Go to the Benefit Information module, choose the View Benefits Summary Detail tab at the bottom of the page to see your current benefit enrollments. Contact your human resources office to confirm your coverage.

Beneficiary designation forms

To change a beneficiary designation, complete a beneficiary form for each plan in which you are enrolled. Keep a copy of each completed beneficiary form for your records. Return completed forms to the address on the form, not to your human resources office.

The plans that have a beneficiary designation form are listed below.  Beneficiary Designation Forms may be found here.

  • EPIC Benefits+
  • State Group Life Insurance
  • Individual & Family Group Life Insurance
  • UW Employees, Inc. Life Insurance
  • Accidental Death & Dismemberment
  • Wisconsin Retirement System (WRS)
  • Wisconsin Deferred Compensation 457 Program
  • If you have a Tax-Sheltered Annuity (TSA), contact the plan directly to update your beneficiary designations

Source: UW System Human Resources