Estate planning at Guardian
How to protect 12 Guardian accounts — manage beneficiaries online, fund a trust by mail, and file death claims
Guardian Claims -- Individual Life (option 2)
The Guardian Life Insurance Co. of America, P.O. Box 981590, El Paso, TX 79998-1590
Guardian offers 12 insurance products that play a central role in estate planning. Because policy proceeds pass directly to named beneficiaries—bypassing probate entirely—keeping designations current is one of the highest-impact steps policyholders can take.
Guardian lets account holders update beneficiary designations online, by mail, and by phone, typically taking 10-15 minutes. Trust funding is also available, allowing families to name a trust as the policy beneficiary or establish an irrevocable life insurance trust (ILIT).
There are two sides to estate planning at Guardian: setting things up while you're alive, and the process survivors follow after a death.
Preparing your estate
Beneficiaries and trust funding
How to manage beneficiaries online, fund a trust by mail, and review 12 account types at Guardian.
View details →When someone dies
Death claim process
6-step process, 7 required documents, and contact information for survivors.
View details →Frequently asked questions
It is the form Guardian requires whenever a trust owns (or is taking ownership of) a Guardian policy, and it lets Guardian act on the trustee's instructions without reading the trust agreement. It asks for the trust name, the trust's tax identification number (a "TIN applied for" box gives you 60 days to supply a certified TIN before backup withholding applies), the effective date, the trust situs and address, whether the trust is revocable or irrevocable, whether it is a grantor trust, and the trustees' names and Social Security numbers. It also fixes signing authority: transactions can be set to require any one trustee, all trustees, or a majority. The trustee must certify that the trust permits the trustee to purchase life insurance and to exercise all ownership rights (surrender, pledge, withdraw, distribute). All trustees sign unless one trustee has authority to sign for the entire trust. Note the revision: TRUST-CERT-2024 replaced the older 2011 revision. A later trustee change on a trust-owned policy requires a new Trust Certification plus the resignation and appointment letters.
Sources
Data sourced from Guardian primary sources (19 pages reviewed). How we research.
Guardian Claims -- Individual Life (option 2)
The Guardian Life Insurance Co. of America, P.O. Box 981590, El Paso, TX 79998-1590
Estate planning articles
Learn how to protect your Guardian accounts and other assets with trusts, beneficiary designations, and estate planning documents.
