Out-of-date beneficiary designations are a common and costly mistake

“The classic worst case is you get divorced, your [ex-]wife is named as beneficiary and you never change the form,” said Ed Slott, a certified public accountant in Rockville Centre, New York. “You might have changed your will to leave everything to the kids. “But after you die, your individual retirement account, if it’s never changed, will go to your ex-wife, not the kids.”