ILIT Crummey Notice Services
Timely, well-documented notices are what make annual ILIT contributions work as intended.
A Great ILIT Plan Deserves Great Follow-Through
An Irrevocable Life Insurance Trust (ILIT) is commonly funded each year through cash contributions used to pay the premiums on the life insurance policy it owns. For those contributions to qualify for the annual gift tax exclusion, each beneficiary generally must be given a genuine, if brief, right to withdraw their share of the contribution — a “present interest” in the gift. A Crummey notice is the written notice that informs a beneficiary of that withdrawal right and the window of time in which it can be exercised.
The exclusion depends on the notices actually being given, on time, to the right people, with a record showing that they were — not just on the trust document permitting withdrawal rights in theory. Annual ILIT contributions require timely Crummey notices to beneficiaries as part of keeping the trust administered the way it was designed to be.
How Barth Agency Services Helps
BAS provides annual ILIT Crummey Notice Administration as part of our integrated trust and entity administration services. We help Trustees manage this recurring responsibility by preparing the required notices, coordinating their delivery to beneficiaries, and maintaining an organized annual record of the notices provided.
For Trustees, this means one less technical deadline to track and one less administrative detail to manage on their own. For clients and their professional advisors, it means a more organized record demonstrating that the ILIT has been administered consistently with the planning put in place when the trust was created.
Creating an ILIT is only the beginning. BAS helps you maintain the administrative details that keep the planning working year after year. Paired with our Entity Maintenance Services, your entity’s compliance and governance records are handled by a single, organized point of contact.
Keeping Your ILIT Completed And On Time
What We Handle for You
Yearly Contributions
We document each year’s contribution to the trust.
Prepare Notices
We prepare Crummy Notices for the trust’s beneficiaries, under the Trustee’s direction.
Delivery and Recordkeeping
We coordinate delivery of notices to the beneficiaries with proof.
Organized and Accessible
We keep annual administrative records organized and readily accessible.
Why Timely, Documented Notices Matter
- A missed, late, or undocumented notice can call into question whether a beneficiary's withdrawal right was genuine — which is central to the gift tax treatment the trust is relying on.
- Proof of delivery is what turns "we sent notices" into a defensible record if the trust's administration is ever reviewed.
- A consistent, year-over-year administrative history is far easier to maintain — and to rely on — than trying to reconstruct past years' notices after the fact.
BAS Is Administrative Support Only
Barth Agency Services does not act as Trustee and does not provide legal, fiduciary, or tax advice. Legal, fiduciary, and tax decisions remain the responsibility of the Trustee and the Trustee’s advisors. BAS supports the administrative side of Crummey notice compliance — documentation, preparation, delivery coordination, and recordkeeping — under the Trustee’s direction.