The discussion of "The Two Funnels"

COMPLETE VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:  Hello, everybody. This is Robert Mansour, broadcasting from my office here in Los Angeles. I wanted to take a very brief moment to explain to you how your assets will pass once you've created the typical estate plan. Your estate is going to pass through two funnels. The first funnel, let's call it funnel A, will be the living trust funnel.

So everything in the name of your living trust is going to pass through that funnel and will be governed by that funnel. So once everything goes through the funnel it will be dispersed to whomever you've designated in your living trust. And then over here you're going to have a different funnel, and that's going to be called funnel number two or funnel B, and that's going to be called your beneficiary funnel.

And the reason for that is because there are certain assets that don't pass by way of the trust. They pass by way of a beneficiary. And basically when you open those kinds of accounts like IRAs and 401ks, 403b's, life insurance policies, when it comes to those kinds of things you have to write down a beneficiary and that's who gets that particular asset. It doesn't matter what you say in your trust. What you say on the beneficiary form governs.

Now, on some cases, you might want to make your living trust the beneficiary on certain assets. And a lot of that has to do with how much control you want to exert. Also, the age of the beneficiaries may have something to do with it. There are a variety of reasons why you might want to do that. But in most cases, your assets will pass in two separate funnels, the first funnel is the living trust funnel, which will hold things like regular bank accounts, investments, CDs, stocks, bonds, real estate.

All that will pass through that funnel. And then you're going to have your generally tax-deferred accounts, 401ks, 403bs, IRAs, life insurance is also in that department because it passes by way of a named beneficiary. If you make sure that all your assets pass one way or the other, the court system will not have to get involved and everything will run relatively smoothly.

Once again, thank you for watching this video about the two different funnels. I hope that helps, and we'll catch you on the next video. Thank you very much for visiting.