Let me repeat that- YOU CAN TRANSFER ASSETS EASILY OUTSIDE OF A TRUST WITHOUT GOING TO PROBATE.
While this is generally true - most assets can transfer via beneficiary designation, TOD, POD, community property, or successor custodianship - there are some cases in some states where it is not true. In my state, for example, real property such as houses and cars owned by a decedent must go through probate because my state does not permit TOD/POD on those types of assets. (Or at least, it did not allow it when I last looked a few years ago.)
But your general point is true. A $100M IRA at Vanguard can pass via beneficiary designation very easily. A $100M bank account can pass via TOD very easily. It's not the size of the assets but the type of account and what your state allows for non-probate transfer methods.
So I think I just got scared away from a trust. Not sure why revocable trusts get passed off as easy and something one should do. Our main reason would be to avoid probate. While our estate is large it’s not complicated or unusual by any means. Big reason I was given is to avoid probate.
Bean counter you’re perspective is the first I’ve heard on revocable trusts. Our assets are:
Primary residence
Pretax retirement accounts
A couple Pensions (lump sum option available)
Couple Roths
Deferred comp
Savings
Life insurance policies
Maybe having the trust be the beneficiary of all these accounts and then direct how to distribute is simpler?
I agree with
@BeanCounter's reply to your post above. If you can name a trust as beneficiary or TOD for any of these, you very likely can also use that same mechanism to name a beneficiary / transferee. I also emphatically agree that having a trust as the intermediate beneficiary is more complicated, slower, and more expensive.
You may want to investigate transferring the life insurance into an ILIT. That way your beneficiaries own the policy, not you. This is advantageous as it gets the proceeds of the life insurance out of your estate, and thus reduces your estate tax exposure. Although again, an ILIT involves setting it up with an attorney, so depending on how much life insurance and your overall exposure to the estate tax (probably low now, but they're talking about lowering the estate tax exemption federally, and your state and your beneficiaries' states might also impose inheritance and/or estate taxes), it may or may not be worth it to do so.
As noted above, your state may or may not let you add TOD/POD on your primary residence. My state doesn't allow it but other states do, so I'm not sure how common or uncommon that aspect is.
An aspect of a trust that *might* be helpful is the ability to have more complicated distribution setups. In my case, I have three kids and when I die they each get one third of each account. This is easy to do without a trust and still avoid probate. If you want a family vacation home to stay in the family, or you want to set it up so that your kids get money at certain times, or want to let someone live in a property until they die and then have the property get sold, then those more complicated things might require a trust just to establish those rules / timeframes / oversight / etc.