To leave money to minor children in Massachusetts, you generally need a trust. Minors cannot legally own or manage significant property, so if you name a child directly as a beneficiary, the money ends up under court-supervised conservatorship until they turn 18, or in a custodial account they control outright at 21.
A trust lets you name who manages the money, define what it can be spent on, and set the age when your child actually receives it. Most families should also name a guardian in their will, which is a separate decision from who handles the money.
Why Can’t I Just Name My Child as Beneficiary?
Because a minor cannot give a valid receipt for property or manage it. If you name your 9-year-old on a life insurance policy or retirement account, the insurer will not hand over a check.
What happens instead is one of two things, and neither is what parents intend:
- A conservatorship. Someone petitions the Probate and Family Court to be appointed conservator of your child’s property. That person must post a bond, file annual accountings with the court, and often get court approval for larger expenditures. It is supervised, public, and expensive, and it lasts until the child turns 18.
- A distribution at 18. When the conservatorship ends, the entire remaining balance goes to your child. An 18-year-old receiving a $600,000 life insurance payout is a predictable problem.
Our guardianship and conservatorship practice handles these proceedings, and the recurring theme is that nearly all of them were avoidable with a trust.
What Are My Options for Leaving Money to Minor Children?
There are four realistic structures. They are not equally good.
| Option | Who manages it | When child gets control | Court involvement |
| Direct beneficiary designation | Court-appointed conservator | Age 18 | Yes, ongoing |
| UTMA custodial account | Custodian you name | Age 21 | No |
| Trust under your will | Trustee you name | Age you choose | Probate first, then no |
| Revocable living trust | Trustee you name | Age you choose | No |
The bottom two options are where most families should land.
What Is the Problem With a UTMA Account?
UTMA accounts are simple and cheap, which is why so many families use them. They have one serious flaw.
Under the Massachusetts Uniform Transfers to Minors Act, the custodianship terminates and the custodian must hand over everything when your child turns 21 for gifts and transfers made under a will or trust. There is no discretion. Your child gets the full balance at 21, whatever their judgment looks like at that point, and whatever their circumstances are.
UTMA accounts also offer no creditor protection and no protection in a future divorce. They are fine for a college fund of modest size. They are the wrong home for a large life insurance death benefit.
How Does a Trust Solve This?
A trust for a minor child lets you control four things a UTMA account cannot.
- Who manages the money. You name the trustee, and it does not have to be the same person raising your child.
- What it can be spent on. Health, education, maintenance, and support is the standard language, but you can be more specific if you want to prioritize education or fund a first home.
- When your child receives it. Common designs distribute in stages, such as one third at 25, one third at 30, and the balance at 35, so a single bad decision does not consume the whole inheritance.
- What protection it carries. A spendthrift clause keeps creditors out, and a lifetime discretionary structure shields the assets in a future divorce.
The staged approach exists for a reason. A 25-year-old and a 35-year-old make different decisions with a large sum of money, and giving your child two more chances after the first distribution is a reasonable hedge.
Should the Guardian and the Trustee Be the Same Person?
Usually not, and this is one of the most useful decisions you can make.
The guardian raises your child. The trustee manages the money. Combining the roles creates a conflict, because the person deciding whether to buy a bigger house is also the person who benefits from living in it. It also means the person who is best with children has to be good with investments, and those are different skills.
A common structure names your sister as guardian and your brother or a professional trustee as trustee, with instructions that the trustee should support the guardian’s household reasonably. The two roles check each other.
Name backups for both. The person you choose at 35 may not be the right choice at 60.
How Much Money Should the Trust Hold?
More than parents usually estimate, because raising a child to adulthood is expensive and the trust has to replace your income.
Think in terms of years remaining. A trust funded for a 4-year-old has to cover roughly fourteen years of support plus college. For a 16-year-old, the horizon is much shorter. Term life insurance is the usual funding tool because it is inexpensive relative to the coverage it provides.
Two mechanics matter here:
- Name the trust as the policy beneficiary, not the child. Naming the child undoes the entire plan and triggers the conservatorship.
- Watch the Massachusetts estate tax. The state taxes estates over $2 million at rates up to 16%, and a large death benefit owned in your own name counts toward that threshold. For substantial coverage, an irrevocable life insurance trust keeps the proceeds out of your taxable estate.
What About a Child With Special Needs?
This requires a different structure entirely, and an ordinary trust can cause real harm.
A child who receives or may receive SSI or MassHealth can be disqualified by an inheritance or by trust distributions made the wrong way. The solution is a third-party special needs trust, drafted so the trustee can supplement benefits without supplanting them. Our special needs planning practice handles this drafting.
Families in this situation should also look at ABLE accounts, which allow tax-advantaged savings alongside a special needs trust. Recent changes expanded who qualifies, and our note on the 2026 ABLE account change covers the update.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need a trust if I only have modest savings?
Possibly not for savings alone, but if you have life insurance through work, the death benefit is usually large enough to justify a trust.
Can I name a guardian without a full estate plan?
You nominate a guardian in your will, so you need a valid will. The court gives your nomination strong weight but is not strictly bound by it.
What if both parents die and no guardian is named?
The Probate and Family Court decides among family members who petition. That process can be contested and slow.
Can my child’s other parent control the money if we are divorced?
If assets pass to your child directly, your ex may end up managing them as conservator. A trust with an independent trustee prevents that.
Put the Structure in Place While It Is Still Hypothetical
Planning for minor children is uncomfortable because it requires imagining an outcome nobody wants to think about. The mechanics, though, are straightforward: a will that nominates a guardian, a trust that holds the money, life insurance payable to the trust rather than the child, and beneficiary designations that match.
To set this up for your family, contact us to schedule an estate planning consultation. We work with parents throughout Essex County and the Merrimack Valley, including Andover, North Andover, Wilmington, Reading, and North Reading.