Protect your estate and loved ones by telling us how you want your income stream handled when you die.

Having a clear and valid will is an important part of estate planning, but under superannuation law, it’s not enough to guarantee your income stream will be treated according to your wishes.

To ensure your income stream is paid out the way you want, you need to nominate a valid beneficiary.

This can remove any uncertainty around how your assets should be managed when you’re no longer around to have a say.

When you apply to set up an income stream, there are three ways you can make a nomination:

  • Make a reversionary nomination that instructs us to keep paying your income stream to your spouse or de facto partner.
  • Make a binding nomination that legally instructs us to pay out your money as a death benefit in the way you request.
  • Make a non-binding nomination that gives us an indication of your preferences without legally binding us to your instructions.

If you don’t make a valid nomination, we have discretion over how to distribute your death benefit.

We will take a non-binding nomination into consideration and be guided by the trust deed and superannuation law.

I want to make a reversionary nomination

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Having a clear and valid will is an important part of estate planning, but under superannuation law, it’s not enough to guarantee your income stream will be treated according to your wishes.

To ensure your income stream is paid out the way you want, you need to nominate a valid beneficiary.

This can remove any uncertainty around how your assets should be managed when you’re no longer around to have a say.

When you apply to set up an income stream, there are three ways you can make a nomination:

  • Make a reversionary nomination that instructs us to keep paying your income stream to your spouse or de facto partner.
  • Make a binding nomination that legally instructs us to pay out your money as a death benefit in the way you request.
  • Make a non-binding nomination that gives us an indication of your preferences without legally binding us to your instructions.

If you don’t make a valid nomination, we have discretion over how to distribute your death benefit.

We will take a non-binding nomination into consideration and be guided by the trust deed and superannuation law.

I want to make a reversionary nomination

Reversionary and binding nominations

If you are receiving an income stream, only your spouse (including a de facto spouse) may be nominated as a reversionary beneficiary.

This means your pension payments will continue to be paid to your spouse in the same amount and frequency prior to your death.

The transfer balance cap^1 applies to reversionary income streams received by a surviving spouse.

You can nominate a reversionary beneficiary when you first apply to open an income stream with us. You can make, change or remove a reversionary nomination any time by completing an Income stream death benefit nomination form.

Non-binding nominations

A non-binding nomination confirms how you would prefer to have your death benefit paid out.

We must take your non-binding nomination into account but – unlike a binding nomination – we are not bound to follow a non-binding nomination. We retain absolute discretion over how the benefit is distributed, guided by the trust deed and superannuation law.

A non-binding nomination lasts forever and doesn’t need to be updated, unless your circumstances change.

Who can be nominated?

Only your spouse, including de facto spouses, may be nominated as a reversionary beneficiary.

Non-binding nominations however can be made to a legal personal representative, or someone who is recognised as your dependent under superannuation law.

While a reversionary nomination can only be made to one person, binding and non-binding nominations however can be made to multiple recipients. Your death benefit can be split into defined percentage amounts that determine what each beneficiary receives as a lump sum.

A dependent may be recognised as:

  • Your spouse (whether of the same or opposite sex). 
  • Your children, including adopted, step and ex-nuptial children, your spouse’s children, and anyone recognised as your child under the Family Law Act 1975 (ie, children under surrogate arrangements).
  • Someone who is financially dependent on you at the time of your death.
  • Someone with whom you have an interdependency relationship.
  • A legal personal representative, also known as your executor or administrator, can receive your death benefit for the purposes of distributing it according to your will.

As your circumstances change, it’s important to keep your nomination up to date. You can choose to make a non-lapsing or lapsing binding nomination, meaning your nomination can be made permanently or set to expire every three years.

I want to update my beneficiaries, can I talk to someone?
  1. The transfer balance cap is the amount you can transfer and hold in tax-free retirement phase accounts. It starts at $1.6 million, and will be indexed in line with the consumer price index (CPI), rounded down to the nearest $100,000. The amount of indexation will be calculated proportionally based on your available cap space. Only the amount of remaining cap space is indexed.

Related topics

Tags:
  • Beneficiaries
  • Estate planning
  • Accessing super