Who to put as your life insurance beneficiary is your choice: a spouse, an unmarried partner, a child, a parent, a grandchild or a friend can all benefit, and some routes let a charity benefit too. What changes from one person to the next is the route the money takes, because a child under 18 or an unmarried partner can need a different set-up from a spouse or an adult child.

If the idea of someone checking your existing or planned cover appeals, a free chat with an FCA-authorised broker is available: leave your name and number in this page’s form and they will phone.

Who can be named as a life insurance beneficiary?

Legal & General’s consumer guide (18 August 2026) puts it plainly: “You can choose whoever you like to be your life insurance beneficiary, whether that’s a spouse, sibling, friend, or someone else.” The practical limit is how an insurer pays out, not your family tree, and the same guide says Legal & General needs a trust before anyone can be named.

Aviva’s Life Insurance booklet (Insurance Details, EDCO2264 0126, page 9) likewise ties who it pays to the circumstances at the time of the claim and whether the insurance has been assigned or written into trust. So naming a person is something you arrange with the insurer or through a trust, rather than a box that anyone can be typed into.

What a beneficiary is, and what the word means for the owner and the person insured, is in what the word beneficiary means on a policy. If you are wondering whether you must name anyone at all, whether a beneficiary is compulsory covers what happens when nobody is named.

How do insurers let you name someone: a trust or a nomination?

There are two routes in the documents, and which one you get depends on the insurer and the plan.

A trust. You put the policy into trust, choose trustees, and the insurer pays the trustees. Aviva’s booklet says it pays the trustees, who must then share the money among the chosen beneficiaries as the trust’s terms direct. Its Guide to trusts (EDCO0853 0126) describes a bare trust, where the beneficiaries and their shares are fixed, and a discretionary trust, where the trustees decide who benefits, how much and when.

A nomination. On some plans you can name people directly, without a trust. Royal London’s Personal Menu Plan details for life or critical illness cover (July 2025, PCP8P10010/17) say: “You can nominate up to five people as beneficiaries, but you can only nominate individuals.” The same plan details state that you can’t nominate a trust, a charity or any other organisation.

The two routes can therefore give different answers for the same person. Which of these is open on the cover you are looking at can be talked through by a broker, at no charge, when they ring.

How a trust is set up and who looks after it are in the steps for putting a policy in trust and the kinds of trust on offer. Whether you need one is the question in whether a policy needs a trust at all, and the wider tax and trust picture sits in trusts and tax.

How do you leave the payout to a partner you are not married to?

A boyfriend, girlfriend or partner you live with can be named, but only through something you set up: a trust, a nomination where the plan offers one, or your will. In England and Wales, GOV.UK’s checker for someone who dies without a will says a partner who was neither married to them nor in a civil partnership with them has no automatic right to inherit. So when a policy is outside a trust and there is no will, the money goes through the estate and an unmarried partner has no claim to it on that basis. Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own intestacy rules.

Legal & General’s page on protection trusts is direct about this: “The worst case could be if the policyholder is not married or in a registered civil partnership and has not made a will, as their partner would not be entitled to the policy proceeds at all unless placed in trust.” Its Discretionary Trust guide (W12709 08/26) lets you add a named person as an “Additional Beneficiary”, and gives the example of a cohabitee.

Marriage or a civil partnership therefore changes the default position, not the options: a married spouse and an unmarried partner can both be named by trust, but where there is no trust and no will, only the spouse or civil partner is among those the intestacy rules provide for. Couples with a joint policy have a separate set of choices, covered in joint life insurance in trust and life insurance for unmarried couples. Should you want to know how a particular policy would deal with your partner, an enquiry via this page’s form brings a call at no cost.

What changes when the beneficiary is under 18?

A child can be named, but not paid directly. Legal & General’s guide says you can select your children as beneficiaries, but you need to name them when writing the policy in trust, and “they won’t be able to receive the funds directly until they’re aged 18 or older.” In the meantime the trustees hold the money. Legal & General’s Discretionary Trust guide says the trustees can invest the money and may be able to make payments to support the beneficiaries, while its Absolute Trust guide says they can invest it for them.

The type of trust matters for what happens at 18. Aviva says that in a bare trust the beneficiaries “have an immediate right to the trust assets from age 18”. GOV.UK’s trusts guidance gives the same age for a bare trust in England and Wales, and 16 in Scotland, as the point from which the beneficiary is entitled to all of the trust’s capital and income at any time. In a discretionary trust the trustees decide, within the terms of the trust, when and how much a young beneficiary receives.

A nomination works differently. Royal London’s plan details say it may pay the parent or guardian of a beneficiary who is a minor, and that the parent or guardian is responsible for ensuring the money is “held or used for the benefit of the minor beneficiary.”

Parents bringing up children alone have their own questions in life insurance for single parents. A policy taken out on a child’s own life is a different subject, covered in is child life insurance worth it.

Can parents, grandchildren or a charity be named?

Parents. Legal & General’s guide says you can select your parents, if you are writing the policy under trust.

Grandchildren. Aviva’s Guide to trusts says “A beneficiary can be any age and could be an unborn child, such as a future grandchild of the settlor.” Aviva’s trust page adds that, in its discretionary trust, children or grandchildren born after you set it up automatically become potential beneficiaries. Legal & General’s Discretionary Trust lists children and grandchildren, with their spouses or registered civil partners, among the beneficiaries written into the trust itself.

A charity. This is where the two routes differ most. A Royal London nomination cannot name a charity; its plan details say that if you want a charity or other organisation to benefit “you may consider assigning your plan into a trust instead.” Legal & General’s Discretionary Trust guide includes “Any person or charity you later name in a deed of addition” among those who can benefit.

Whether any of these arrangements fit your family is a decision for you, and a broker can walk you through how an insurer would handle it after you submit your details on this page. If a person you named has died first, the guide to a beneficiary dying before you explains the position, and changing who benefits covers updating a name.

Frequently asked questions

Who should I put as beneficiary on my life insurance?

That is your decision, and nobody can make it for you. What the rules above do show is that the person’s circumstances shape the route: a spouse, an unmarried partner, a child under 18 and a charity can each need a different arrangement, so it helps to settle who first and then check which arrangement the policy allows.

Does life insurance go to my heirs automatically?

Only in the sense the law sets. Legal & General’s guide says that without a trust or a will the lump sum forms part of the estate and passes under the intestacy rules, so it reaches the relatives those rules name, not necessarily the people you would choose. Who those relatives are in each UK nation is set out in the guide to policies with no named beneficiary, and is a life insurance payout taxable deals with the tax side.

Can a stepchild be a life insurance beneficiary?

Legal & General’s guide says you can name whoever you like, which is not limited to blood relatives. How a stepchild is treated under a given trust’s wording is a detail the broker can look up for you without charge during the call that follows your enquiry.

Sources