IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA

No. 18-0590

Filed January 9, 2019

IN THE MATTER OF THE ESTATE OF JILL A. JORDAN, Deceased.

ESTATE OF JILL A. JORDAN,

Petitioner-Appellant,

vs.

IOWA MEDICAID ENTERPRISE ESTATE RECOVERY PROGRAM,

Respondent-Appellee.

________________________________________________________________

Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Cerro Gordo County, DeDra L. 

Schroeder, Judge.

An estate appeals from the district court’s order granting summary judgment 

in favor of the Iowa Department of Human Services on the estate’s petition for 

declaratory judgment regarding the payment of an annuity. AFFIRMED.

David H. Skilton of Cronin, Skilton & Skilton, P.L.L.C., Charles City, for 

appellant.

Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, and Matthew K. Gillespie, Assistant 

Attorney General, for appellee.

Heard by Vogel, P.J., and Vaitheswaran and McDonald, JJ.
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VAITHESWARAN, Judge.

We must decide whether an annuity purchased by a woman and listing a 

state agency as beneficiary should have been included in the deceased woman’s 

estate. 

The facts are essentially undisputed. Jill Jordan received $378,057.13 of 

medical assistance from the Iowa Department of Human Services. As a condition 

of eligibility for the public assistance, Jordan named the department primary 

beneficiary of a fifteen-year annuity she purchased for $75,000. Jordan passed 

away during the fifteen-year period. The insurer that issued the annuity transferred 

the remaining balance of $60,283.80 to the department. 

Meanwhile, Jordan’s will was admitted to probate for small estate 

administration. Under the will, Jordan’s debts allowable against her estate 

included the expenses of her “last illness and burial.” A funeral home filed a 

probate claim for $7566.22. The estate lacked sufficient funds to pay the claim.

The administrator of the estate filed a petition for declaratory judgment 

seeking to include the “disputed annuity” in the estate.1 The department moved 

for summary judgment on the ground that it “was the 100% primary beneficiary” 

and, accordingly, the estate had “no interest in the annuity funds.” The district 

court granted the department’s motion after finding as follows: 

At the time of death, the decedent owned an annuity, which 

paid out income monthly to the decedent and still left the decedent 

eligible to receive medical assistance. [The department] was the 

sole beneficiary of the annuity, and, as such, the estate of Jill Jordan 

has no interest in the annuity funds. The annuity can only be brought 

 

1 The petition named the department and the insurance company that issued the annuity. 

The district court granted the insurer’s motion to dismiss, and the estate stipulated to 

dismissal of its appeal against the insurer. 
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into the estate if [the department] had a claim against the estate 

through its estate recovery program and [the department] was not 

the primary beneficiary of the annuity. Both of these factors are not 

met, and, accordingly, the annuity is not an asset of the estate.

The court denied the estate’s request for reconsideration. 

On appeal, the executor of the estate contends “the annuity contract is void” 

because it “violates a clear public policy on priority payment of claims.” The 

executor cites Iowa Code section 633.425 (2017), which ranks “[r]easonable 

funeral and burial expenses” above “[a]ny debt for medical assistance.” In the 

executor’s view, the department “prioritized itself above all other claimants under 

[section] 633.425 and [was] complicit in the agreement to enforce same by not 

allowing [the annuity] to be used to pay priority claims.” See Iowa Code § 633.426 

(“Payment of debts and charges of the estate shall be made in the order provided 

in section 633.425, without preference of any claim over another of the same class. 

If the assets of the estate are insufficient to pay in full all of the claims of a class, 

then such claims shall be paid on a pro rata basis, without preference between 

claims then due and those of the same class not due.”). Our review is for errors 

of law. See In re Estate of Renwanz, 561 N.W.2d 43, 44 (Iowa 1997). 

In In re Estate of Myers, 825 N.W.2d 1, 2 (Iowa 2012), the Iowa Supreme 

Court was asked to decide “whether a surviving spouse’s elective share . . . 

include[d] pay-on-death [(POD)] assets.” The court held, “POD assets are not 

included in the surviving spouse’s elective share” under the applicable statute. 

Myers, 825 N.W.2d at 6. The court reasoned they were “nonprobate assets” and 

“[n]onprobate assets are interests in property that pass outside of the decedent’s 

probate estate to a designated beneficiary upon the decedent’s death.” Id. The 
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court continued, “Although these assets are the personal property of the grantor 

before death, they become the personal property of the designated beneficiaries 

upon the grantor’s death pursuant to a contract between the grantor and the 

administrator of the account.” Id. at 6–7. 

The same is true here. On Jordan’s death, the remaining annuity balance 

became the personal property of the department as the “100% primary 

beneficiary.” The balance was never a probate asset subject to Iowa Code section 

633.425. See In re Estate of Ganter, 893 N.W.2d 896, 900 (Iowa 2017)

(concluding IRA accounts passed outside the probate estate); cf. Cox. v. Iowa 

Dep’t of Human Servs., ___ N.W.2d ___, ___, 2018 WL 6259391, at *4, *10 (Iowa 

2018) (addressing transfer of assets to pooled special needs trusts and whether 

department correctly imposed penalties for long-term institutional care following 

transfer); City of Ames v. Ratliff, 471 N.W.2d 803, 806 (Iowa 1991) (concluding 

City’s claim for reimbursement of health benefits provided under a self-insured 

health benefit plan was “not a debt or charge” under the probate code but arose 

from the decedent’s pre-death assignment of a share of a wrongful death 

recovery); In re Estate of Nielsen, 445 N.W.2d 780, 782 (Iowa 1989) (stating 

section 633.425 controlled classification of non-exempt property rather than 

exempt personal property). The district court did not err in granting the 

department’s motion for summary judgment.

AFFIRMED.