The Beneficiary Value Add provides an estate planning overview showing who will inherit household assets — including both investment accounts and life insurance death benefits — and how much each beneficiary would receive.
This article walks through every section of the Beneficiary report, explains where each value comes from, and outlines what is automatic vs. customizable.
What Is the Beneficiary Value Add?
The Beneficiary Value Add is a client-facing report that:
Shows a summary of all primary beneficiaries and the total amount each would receive
Shows a summary of all contingent beneficiaries and their totals
Provides a detailed breakdown by account owner, showing each account and insurance policy with its beneficiary designations, percentages, and dollar amounts
It is generated automatically using account beneficiary data and life insurance policy data.
Note: The Beneficiary report must be explicitly enabled for your firm. Unlike Guardrails and Buckets (which are enabled by default), Beneficiary defaults to disabled. Enable it under Settings → Value Adds → Beneficiary Settings.
1. Header & Branding
Logo
Pulled from your firm's saved company logo
Editable under Settings → Firm Settings
If no logo is saved, the report displays without one
Branding Color
Uses your firm's branding color
Default color is a dark navy
Controls footer borders and accent elements
Report Title
Default title: "Beneficiary Report"
Can be customized at the firm level
Editable under Settings → Value Adds → Beneficiary Settings
2. Reported "As-Of" Date
Reflects the most recent valuation date found across all household accounts
Fully automatic — cannot be manually edited
Display format: M/D/YYYY (e.g., "2/4/2026")
3. Client Name Line
Pulled from all clients linked to the household
Displayed as: Last, First with superscript ages
Deceased clients are automatically filtered out if at least one living client exists
4. Primary Beneficiaries Table
The first section of the report shows a summary table of all primary beneficiaries across all accounts and insurance policies.
Columns
Name — The beneficiary's full name
Total Receives — The total dollar amount this beneficiary would receive across all accounts and policies
How "Total Receives" Is Calculated
The system adds up each beneficiary's share from every account and insurance policy where they're designated as a primary beneficiary.
Example:
Darin is primary on John's IRA ($500,000) at 50% → receives $250,000
Darin is also primary on a life insurance policy ($1,000,000) at 100% → receives $1,000,000
Darin's Total Receives: $1,250,000
If the same person appears as a primary beneficiary on multiple accounts, their totals are combined into a single row.
5. Contingent Beneficiaries Table
The second section shows a summary table of all contingent beneficiaries — the people who would inherit if the primary beneficiaries are unable to.
The structure and calculations are identical to the Primary table, just using contingent designations instead.
6. Per-Owner Investment Blocks
Below the summary tables, the report shows detailed tables grouped by account owner. Each client in the household gets their own section.
Table Columns
Account — The account type and last 4 digits of the account number (e.g., "Traditional IRA - 1234") or "Life Insurance - 5678" for policies
Value — The current account value for investment accounts, or the face amount (death benefit) for life insurance policies
Beneficiary — Names of all designated beneficiaries for this account
Type — Whether each beneficiary is "Primary" or "Contingent"
% — The percentage allocation for each beneficiary
Receives — The dollar amount each beneficiary would receive (Value × %)
How Accounts Are Grouped
Accounts are grouped by their owner. If Darin owns an IRA and a brokerage account, both appear under the "Darin Adams" section. Joint accounts appear under the first listed owner.
Primary and Contingent in the Same Row
Each account row shows both primary and contingent beneficiaries, with primary listed first and contingent listed below, separated by a blank line.
Color-Coded Headers
Each owner's table header is color-coded based on the client's gender for visual differentiation:
Male: Light blue header
Female: Light pink header
Other/Not specified: Light gray header
7. Two Data Sources: Accounts and Life Insurance
The Beneficiary report pulls from two different data sources, and it's important to understand the difference.
Investment Accounts
Value shown: Current account value (what the account is worth today)
Beneficiary data: Stored as primary and contingent lists on each account, each with a percentage allocation
Where to edit: Account details page → Beneficiaries section
Life Insurance Policies
Value shown: Face amount (death benefit) — this is the payout amount upon death, not the policy's cash value
Beneficiary data: Stored on the policy with a tier (Primary or Contingent) and allocation percentage
Where to edit: Insurance policy details page → Beneficiaries section
Why face amount instead of cash value? The Beneficiary report is about estate planning — what beneficiaries will actually receive. For life insurance, that's the death benefit (face amount), not the cash surrender value. This is the opposite of the Net Worth report, which uses cash value because it shows what the household could access today.
Beneficiary Names from Insurance
Life insurance beneficiaries imported from external systems sometimes arrive in "Last, First" format (e.g., "Brown, Anthony"). The system automatically converts these to "First Last" format (e.g., "Anthony Brown") for consistent display across the report.
8. Account Inclusion & Exclusion
The Beneficiary report is more inclusive than Guardrails and Buckets. It includes all non-cash accounts because all of them can have beneficiary designations relevant for estate planning.
Which Accounts Are Included?
Everything except cash accounts, including:
All retirement accounts (IRA, Roth, 401k, etc.)
Brokerage and investment accounts
Annuities
Trust accounts
HSAs
529 plans (excluded from Guardrails/Buckets, but included here)
Custodial accounts (UTMA/UGMA) (excluded from Guardrails/Buckets, but included here)
Inherited IRAs and Beneficiary IRAs (excluded from Guardrails/Buckets, but included here)
All life insurance policies (regardless of type or status)
Which Accounts Are Excluded?
Only cash accounts are excluded:
Checking accounts
Savings accounts
Money market accounts
Certificates of deposit (CDs)
Cash accounts
Why Is the Beneficiary Report More Inclusive?
Guardrails and Buckets focus on retirement portfolio analysis, so they exclude education, custodial, and inherited accounts. The Beneficiary report focuses on estate planning, where all accounts that can have beneficiary designations matter — even 529s (which can name successor beneficiaries) and inherited IRAs (which can designate successor beneficiaries).
9. Beneficiary Deduplication
The summary tables (Primary and Contingent) combine totals for beneficiaries who appear on multiple accounts.
How It Works
If "John Doe" is a primary beneficiary on three different accounts, his receives amounts are summed into a single row showing the combined total.
Important: Matching Is Exact
Beneficiary names are matched character-for-character, including capitalization. This means:
"John Doe" and "John Doe" → combined into one row
"John Doe" and "john doe" → shown as two separate rows
"John Doe" and "John Doe" (extra space) → shown as two separate rows
If you see what looks like the same person listed twice in the summary table, check for inconsistent capitalization or extra spaces in the beneficiary names across different accounts.
10. Common Questions
Why are some beneficiary fields blank?
If you see an account listed with no beneficiary name, type, percentage, or receives amount, it means no beneficiary designations have been entered for that account. Go to the account detail page to add beneficiaries.
Why doesn't the total match what I expect?
Check that beneficiary percentages are set on all relevant accounts
Life insurance uses face amount (death benefit), not cash value — this can make totals larger than expected
The summary tables combine amounts across accounts and insurance policies for each beneficiary
Why do I see a "No beneficiaries found" warning?
This appears when none of the household's investment accounts or insurance policies have any beneficiary designations entered. This is a data completeness issue — beneficiaries need to be added to at least one account.
11. Firm-Level Configuration
Setting | Where to Edit | Default |
Enabled | Settings → Value Adds → Beneficiary Settings | Disabled (must opt in) |
Report Title | Settings → Value Adds → Beneficiary Settings | "Beneficiary Report" |
Disclaimer Text | Settings → Value Adds → Beneficiary Settings | Default disclaimer |
There are no rate settings or calculation parameters to configure for the Beneficiary report — it's purely driven by account and insurance data.
12. Footer & Disclaimer
Footer
Displays firm contact details:
Address
Phone number
Website
These are pulled from Settings → Firm Settings and separated by dots.
Disclaimer
The disclaimer is built dynamically and includes lead advisor names
Custom disclaimer text is editable under Settings → Value Adds → Beneficiary Settings
If no advisors are assigned, the disclaimer will explicitly state: "NO ADVISORS ASSIGNED"
In Summary
The Beneficiary Value Add is:
Estate planning focused — shows who inherits what, across both investment accounts and life insurance
More inclusive than other reports — includes 529s, custodial accounts, and inherited accounts that are excluded from Guardrails and Buckets
Dual-source — combines investment account data (using current value) with life insurance data (using face amount / death benefit)
Automatically generated — calculates shares from beneficiary percentages and account/policy values
Firm-customizable — title and disclaimer can be adjusted in Settings
If beneficiary information appears incomplete, the most likely cause is missing beneficiary designations on one or more accounts. The report can only show what's been entered.