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url: /features/beneficiary-designation.md
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# Beneficiary Designation

Beneficiary designation defines who receives the proceeds of a policy in the event of the insured's death — the core of the death-settlement process.

## Standard and custom wording

A designation is either:

* **Standard** — the product's predefined beneficiary wording. No additional text may be supplied.
* **Custom** — free text authored for the policy. The text cannot be empty or whitespace-only.

Not every product supports a beneficiary designation, and support for the standard wording depends on the product having an active standard wording configured.

## Lifecycle

A policy's beneficiary designation can be changed only while the policy's lifecycle state permits it — for example, a designation change is rejected once the policy has moved into a state where it is locked.

## Related

* [Glossary: Beneficiary](/glossary/beneficiary)
* [Error Handling → Beneficiary Designation errors](/errors/)