My mother unexpectedly passed away last week, and I'm one of four beneficiaries (two sisters and a brother) on all her accounts, so an even 25% on everything.
She had a 401K through Vanguard and it has around $700,000 in it. I have a pension at work, but I don't currently have a retirement account that I pay into - however, I can open a 403B. I do have a Roth IRA and a Traditional IRA though Vanguard though.
What are my options for receiving my portion of her Vanguard account? Should I actually call Vanguard and talk to them about it? Are my only options: rolling into a 403B, rolling into an Inherited IRA, or cashing it out and taking a tax hit? Which would be best? Any good reading on this?
She also had an Etrade account which holds stock options from where she worked. The stocks currently in there don't vest fully for a few years. Is this part of the estate? Anything I need to know about this?
Then she had her Wells Fargo checking / savings account. Is this part of the estate? Can us kids legally just pull money from this account and split it? Or do we need to wait for the probate process? I'm actually not sure how much is in here because we are having a hard time accessing the account with all the security these days - we don't currently have access to her phone.
Then there is the life insurance which is a bit tricky. She died very unexpected - and it's considered a homicide. We aren't sure if the AD&D will be paid out. Any advice here? We've seen the policy and it is SUPER vague, as in it doesn't really mention specifically what is covered and what is not for the AD&D portion.
One feeling throughout this whole process is that I DON'T TRUST ANYONE! Is this a valid feeling? Can companies lie about this stuff, or should I not worry about it? Her finances (amounts) are somewhat unknown to all of us, so it's hard to tell if people / companies are telling the truth.
Thanks for any advice!
Submitted April 18, 2019 at 12:33AM by netartian http://bit.ly/2V4emnJ
