Gifts of Life Insurance preceeds all retirement plan assets

If you have a life insurance policy that you no longer need, a gift of a life insurance policy can be a way to combine charitable objectives with tax advantages for you.

An irrevocable gift of life insurance may be appropriate when the growth of your assets or the reduced needs of your dependents make the policy unnecessary.

Retirement plan assets
The disposition of assets held in IRAs and retirement plan accounts (for example, 401(k), 401(a), 403(b) or 457 plan accounts) is governed by beneficiary designations for the accounts. You can give the assets or a portion of the assets in these accounts to the U by naming the University of Minnesota Foundation as a beneficiary on the appropriate form provided by the plan administrator.

Using retirement assets to make charitable gifts at death avoids the expense of revising a will or revocable trust agreement. Also, it has the advantage that long-deferred, usually significant income tax on highly-appreciated retirement assets will not be incurred either by you or your family.

Life insurance proceeds
Like retirement assets, life insurance proceeds are paid to the beneficiary or beneficiaries designated by the policy owner. Again, to make a gift of life insurance proceeds to the U, the University of Minnesota Foundation should be named as the beneficiary. As with retirement accounts, you can choose the amount to be paid to your selected charitable beneficiary - either a set dollar amount, a percentage, or all of the proceeds. You also can make a current gift of a life insurance policy with a cash value by transferring ownership of the policy to the Foundation.