When you establish a bank account or a brokerage account, you can add a beneficiary. This is called a payable on death or transfer on death account. If you do this, after your passing, the beneficiary would present the death certificate and assume ownership of the account.
In California, you can select the payable on death option when you are registering your car. In a sense, individual retirement accounts are payable on death accounts because you name a beneficiary.
Payable on death transfers are not subject to the probate process, and this would apply to all the different types of payable on death accounts.
If you are the beneficiary of a life insurance policy, the company will remit the proceeds to you after the policyholder’s death if everything is in order. The probate court would not be involved.
Joint tenancy is the condition of co-ownership of property. When one joint tenant passes away, the surviving joint tenant would inherit their ownership interest, and this would be a probate-free transfer.