Does Life Insurance Go Into Probate? 
One of the benefits of Life Insurance is that it can help a family plan to bypass probate . A properly structured policy with a correct beneficiary designation to a person or entity that is not the deceased 's estate will bypass probate . Many families are happy to hear this and use Life Insurance to control how and where their legacy is transferred without the work probate entails . Jerry made a great point above about reviewing beneficiary designations on a regular basis . -LRB- Especially on older policies - or other accounts that have beneficiary designations , like IRA 's and 401 -LRB- k -RRB- s -RRB- . Beneficiaries can be updated and changed to help maintain the benefit of bypassing probate . 