Reciprocal Beneficiaries and Estate Planning in Hawaii - A Brief Overview

     Hawaii Revised Statutes Chapter 572C  was enacted in 1997 and codifies the reciprocal beneficiary laws in Hawaii.  The reciprocal beneficiary statutes seek to provide some of the legal rights and benefits that are only available to married couples to people who legally prohibited from marrying.  Some of these rights include having the standing to sue for wrongful death and other tort claims, rights to workers' compensation benefits, receive payments of wages on the death of an employee, family leave, health insurance, property rights, hospital visitation, healthcare decision-making and inheritance rights.
     In terms of estate planning, when a person dies intestate (i.e. without a Will), a reciprocal beneficiary has the same inheritance rights as a surviving spouse.  In the event a person does have a Will, but perhaps leaves little or nothing to the surviving reciprocal beneficiary, the survivor can opt to take an "elective share", which is a percentage of the combined estates of the decedent and surviving reciprocal beneficiary.  This percentage depends on the length of time the couple were registered as reciprocal beneficiaries and increases the longer they were together.
     Reciprocal beneficiaries may also hold property as tenants by the entirety.  Tenancy by the entirety is a form of concurrent property ownership that affords a couple who holds property as tenants by the entirety additional creditor protection.  A creditor of one of the reciprocal beneficiaries may not attach and sell the property interest of the debtor reciprocal beneficiary.  However, a joint creditor of both reciprocal beneficiaries may do so.
     With respect to healthcare decision-making, a reciprocal beneficiary is considered to be an "interested person" and is on equal footing with an adult child, parent or sibling of the patient (Hawaii Revised Statutes Section 327E-2).  Therefore, a reciprocal beneficiary will have a say in healthcare decision-making if the patient does not have an advance health care directive.