An update on Binding Death Nominations

When it comes to making sure your affairs are in order prior to your passing, it’s important to remember that your superannuation death benefit is not necessarily distributed via your Will. This will only occur where you have elected to have your superannuation death benefit paid to your estate, or unless the trustee of your superannuation, under certain circumstances, has decided to pay it into your estate.

Whether you wish your superannuation death benefit to be paid to your estate, directly to your dependents or as a combination of both, it’s important to ensure your beneficiary nominations are up-to-date, valid and reflect your wishes.

In this animation, we discuss superannuation death benefits, eligible beneficiaries and different types of beneficiary nominations you can make.

Changes to GESB Gold State and GESB West State Binding Death Nominations

Whilst the GESB Gold State and GESB West State Superannuation products have their significant benefits, they had previously been unable to accept a Binding Death Nomination. 

At the GESB Annual Member Meeting on 25th November 2021 the Chief Executive Officer, Ben Palmer, announced changes to this:

"I'm very pleased to inform you that we have recently made changes to our governing State regulations, which do allow the Board to accept binding death benefit nominations. That allows the member to, subject to meeting certain criteria, instruct the Board as to how to distribute their superannuation benefit on their death, which then means it doesn't go into the estate if we have a valid binding death nomination in place.  It provides members with more flexibility but certainly provides for those members that don't want it to go into the estate and won't have to."

This is a significant change for members but requires the account holder to submit a Binding Death Nomination form that you can download by clicking here. Once completed, you can forward this form to GESB who will action it on your behalf. 

If you would like to discuss this or have any questions regarding adding or updating your Binding Death Nomination to your West State or Gold State Super account please contact the WMP Office on (08) 9638 6030. 

For more information from GESB, you can visit their Binding Death Nomination Help Guide.