Estate planning at M1
How to protect 12 M1 accounts — manage beneficiaries online, fund a trust online, and file death claims
Client Success
M1 Finance LLC, 200 N LaSalle St., Suite 810, Chicago, IL 60601
Client Success
M1 Finance LLC, 200 N LaSalle St., Suite 810, Chicago, IL 60601
Client Success (no dedicated bereavement or estate-claims team; in-app Messenger is the primary intake)
M1 offers 12 consumer investment accounts that interact with estate planning in distinct ways. Of those, 9 can name a trust as beneficiary or be retitled into a trust. Understanding the transfer methods available for each account type helps families keep assets out of probate and ensure they pass to the right people.
Managing beneficiaries at M1 is straightforward—changes can be made online and by mail, typically taking 5-10 minutes online; 15-20 minutes for the M1 Beneficiary Form. Trust funding is also available, allowing families to retitle brokerage accounts into a trust.
M1 provides specific procedures for both proactive estate planning and filing claims after a death.
Preparing your estate
Beneficiaries and trust funding
How to manage beneficiaries online, fund a trust online, and review 12 account types at M1.
View details →When someone dies
Death claim process
7-step process, 4 required documents, and contact information for survivors.
View details →Frequently asked questions
M1's online beneficiary tool at https://dashboard.m1.com/d/settings/profile/beneficiaries applies one shared set of beneficiaries across every eligible account, and it does not accept a trust. To name a trust — or to give different accounts different beneficiaries — you have to use the M1 Beneficiary Form (https://arsl.at/Gw4Pj38m) for brokerage, High-Yield Cash, and High-Yield Savings accounts, or the M1 IRA Beneficiary Form (https://arsl.at/mX0q8gVm) for Traditional, Roth, and SEP IRAs. The form takes the trust's legal name and Tax ID and allows up to 3 primary and 3 contingent beneficiaries per account, with whole-number percentages totaling 100%. Designations are not effective until M1 accepts them, and a new designation voids the previous one for that account.
M1 Trust accounts are a separate account type with their own application (https://arsl.at/NlWVeNqB), a $5,000 minimum account value, and a hard requirement that the trust hold its own EIN — a trust operating under the grantor's Social Security number is not eligible. M1 does not publish a procedure for retitling an existing individual or joint brokerage account into a trust; the documented path is opening the Trust account and moving the assets, which you coordinate with Client Success through the Messenger or help@m1.com. M1 supports only U.S. domestic revocable and irrevocable trusts — foreign and testamentary trusts are not accepted. Trust accounts themselves cannot carry beneficiary designations; the trust agreement governs distribution.
Sources
Data sourced from M1 primary sources (16 pages reviewed). How we research.
Client Success
M1 Finance LLC, 200 N LaSalle St., Suite 810, Chicago, IL 60601
Client Success
M1 Finance LLC, 200 N LaSalle St., Suite 810, Chicago, IL 60601
Client Success (no dedicated bereavement or estate-claims team; in-app Messenger is the primary intake)
Estate planning articles
Learn how to protect your M1 accounts and other assets with trusts, beneficiary designations, and estate planning documents.
