A beneficiary change request is not a beneficiary change

Carl Kleinfeldt divorced in September 2022. About two weeks later he had a fax sent to his employer’s benefits center, with a copy of the divorce judgment attached, asking it to remove his former wife, Dená Langdon, from his health, vision and dental coverage “and as a beneficiary of my 401(k), pension and life insurance accounts.” Packaging Corporation of America took her off the health coverage and changed her status on his retirement account from “spouse” to “ex-spouse.” It did not remove her as the account’s primary beneficiary. He died in January 2023, and in February 2026 the Seventh Circuit held that she was still the beneficiary when he died (Packaging Corp. of America Thrift Plan v. Langdon, No. 25-1859).

A client who says a change “was sent in” is describing a request. Whether the request became a change depends on the institution’s procedure, and the clearest evidence that it did is the institution’s own record of who is on file. If nobody obtains that record while the client is alive, the question can end up in court after the death.

What the fax asked for, and what the plan recorded

The plan told participants how to change a beneficiary: “contact the PCA Benefits Center” by phone “or you can update your beneficiaries online.” Kleinfeldt used neither. The fax was typed and ended with “CARL” rather than a signature, and it closed with a line: “Please feel free to fax any necessary paperwork to the above fax that I may need to complete.” He died on January 16, 2023, a little over three months later.

PCA acted on part of the fax. It took Langdon off the health coverage and changed her marital status on the retirement account, and it left the beneficiary designation as it was. The beneficiary record showed her as primary throughout, though someone who saw only the coverage change could reasonably have assumed the rest of the request had gone through.

The divorce also divided the account. Under a qualified domestic relations order signed in November 2022, the plan paid Langdon 21.3 percent of it, $65,953.25. The order did not change who would receive the remainder at his death. When his estate and Langdon both claimed the balance, the plan filed an interpleader action and deposited $320,299.50 with the federal court in Wisconsin (district court opinion, Apr. 30, 2025).

Two courts read the same fax and reached opposite results

When a participant has not followed the plan’s procedure, the Seventh Circuit has long applied substantial compliance, a doctrine of federal common law that fills a gap ERISA leaves open. A change can count if the participant intended it and took “positive action which is for all practical purposes similar to the action required” by the plan.

The district court held that the fax met both parts. Its words showed his intent, and sending it was positive action. His own doubt about whether the fax was enough had “no bearing,” in the court’s view, and the missing signature did not matter because Langdon conceded that he wrote the fax. Applying the plan’s terms, the court awarded the balance to the estate of his sister, the contingent beneficiary, who had survived him.

The Seventh Circuit reversed. It agreed that his intent was “undeniably met” and held that the fax failed the second part. In the cases where that court had found substantial compliance, the participant had used the plan’s own change form and made a clerical error on it, left it unsigned, or followed an employer’s instructions on a form the employer had marked incorrectly. In the cases where it had not, a participant had told a co-worker he meant to make a change and never completed the form, and in a Massachusetts federal case the court also cited, an insurer’s agent had told a participant by phone, wrongly, that his wife was already the beneficiary, so he never filed the form. Two of the Seventh Circuit’s cases applied Illinois law, which it treats as essentially the same test. Kleinfeldt “did not even attempt” to use the plan’s procedures, and nothing in the plan documents allowed a change by fax.

The court read his request for “any necessary paperwork” against him, as a sign that he understood further steps might be required. “Rather than following up with PCA, however, Kleinfeldt did nothing more.” It sent the case back for entry of judgment for Langdon.

The court did not decide whether substantial compliance survives Kennedy v. DuPont, the 2009 Supreme Court decision holding that a plan administrator pays according to the plan documents. It assumed the doctrine applied and held that the fax failed it anyway. The post on beneficiary designation drift covers Kennedy itself.

How far the case reaches

Langdon is one circuit’s decision about one ERISA plan. IRAs, individually owned life insurance and transfer-on-death accounts are governed by the account agreement or policy and by state law. Many states revoke a former spouse’s designation at divorce by statute for some of those assets, a rule the Supreme Court held preempted for ERISA plans in Egelhoff v. Egelhoff. Kleinfeldt’s estate first argued Wisconsin’s version to the plan, and neither court’s decision rested on it. A court applying its own version of substantial compliance may weigh similar facts differently.

From the fax in October 2022 to the appellate decision in February 2026, the question took more than three years to answer. The plan filed its interpleader action in September 2023, and the district court ruled in April 2025. His sister died in August 2023, so her estate, his estate and his former wife were all parties by the time the courts decided what the fax had done.

Closing a requested change

For each beneficiary or title change a client has requested, the file should hold:

• What was asked for, in the client’s words or on the copy that was sent
• The date and the route it went by: the institution’s form, its website, a phone call, a letter or a fax
• Any reply from the institution, including a request for its own form
• What the institution now shows: a written confirmation, a current statement, or the account’s beneficiary page listing the primary and contingent beneficiaries, with the date it was retrieved

A fax confirmation or a certified-mail receipt shows that a request was sent, or at most that it was delivered, and it says nothing about what the institution did with it. A spoken answer can be wrong, as it was in the Massachusetts case. The beneficiary review worksheet records each designation as the institution has it, and after a divorce the same standard applies to every item in the post-divorce audit.

When the record does not match the request, the client makes the change through the procedure the institution names, and the item stays open until the new record comes back. Beneficiary forms can carry requirements of their own. Employer retirement plans generally require a married participant’s spouse to consent in writing before anyone else is named, and naming a trust affects how the account must be paid out after death (see naming a trust as IRA beneficiary). What a designation should say is the household’s decision, made with its attorney and tax advisor.

The advisor keeps the record. Whether a request that did not follow the procedure still counts is a legal question; after a death it belongs to the estate’s counsel and sometimes to a court.

How Bancroft handles it

For retirement accounts and life insurance the household marks for its trust, Bancroft’s beneficiary letters ask the institution to send its own change form, so the change is made when the institution processes that form. In the asset inventory, the household can note the beneficiary named on each account or policy, and the advisor sees that note beside the asset. Each letter shows the advisor whether it has been approved and mailed and whether the household has uploaded what the institution sent back.

To see the asset inventory and the funding letters on a sample household, book a demo.