Gainesville Georgia Legal Blog

It sometimes seems like a minor point to name the beneficiary when people in Georgia are setting up their individual retirement accounts. While individuals may not think it's important in the moment, failing to name a beneficiary or naming the wrong one is one of the biggest estate planning mistakes a person can make. The reason is that the family of the IRA owner can go through unnecessary stress or face unnecessary costs when there are beneficiary mistakes.

When the owner of an IRA dies without designating a beneficiary, the assets in the IRA are immediately transferred into the person's estate. In cases where a beneficiary has been properly designated, however, the IRA assets pass outside of probate. Most of the time, people list their spouses as designated beneficiaries on retirement accounts. Indeed, this is required for 401(k)s unless the spouse has made an explicit waiver in writing. With IRAs, it's up to the owner to make the designation. Setting the spouse as the beneficiary often makes the most sense because the spouse's tax obligations will be stretched out for a long period.

Georgia residents who tune in to the Weather Channel may know that the two stars of the show "Storm Wranglers" died while pursuing a tornado in Texas in March of 2017. The duo had been speeding and apparently ignored a stop sign. That was when they collided with a jeep, killing both the 25-year-old driver of the other vehicle and themselves.

The Weather Channel live streams these tornado chases on its Facebook page. The chase that led up to the fatal crash was recorded as well, abruptly ending at the moment of the collision.

Accidental deaths can be more difficult for people to process than many other forms of death. Accidental death often involves a sudden and unexpected occurrence, such as a motor vehicle accident. Since you have no way of predicting that these events will occur, there are often things left undone or unsettled by the people who survived these accidents. This can make it uniquely difficult to grieve.

You should absolutely give yourself time to process your loss after a fatal crash. However, you also need to take action sooner rather than later to protect yourself and your family in the wake of a fatal car crash. Financial issues can quickly snowball when a wage-earner dies unexpectedly.

The Governors Highway Safety Association has analyzed data collected by state highway safety offices in the first half of 2018. Based on this information, it estimates that 6,227 pedestrians were killed last year. If the estimate is accurate, 2018 marked an increase of 250 deaths from 2017 and was the most deadly year for pedestrians since 1990. Georgia residents may be interested to know what else the GHSA report says.

Pedestrians made up 16 percent of all road fatalities in 2018, compared to 12 percent in 2009. SUV-related pedestrian fatalities have increased 50 percent from 2013 to 2018, compared to a 30 percent increase in passenger car-related pedestrian deaths during that same period. SUVs account for 60 percent of all new vehicle sales. At the same time, the higher front-end profiles make SUVs more deadly when they collide with pedestrians.