Bear - from my time as a stockbroker, I can offer some advice, but as another stated - talk to your broker, attorney, and/or cpa's about this topic.
At the brokerage firm I worked at, we had what was called a Transfer on Death (TOD) agreement. Most major firms have this. With a TOD, once I got the death certificate, I could have stocks/funds/etc transfered to the appropriate people within days if the receiving person(s) had an account at the firm. If not, they simply had to open an account and then the transfer would take place.
Again, you need to discuss this with the firm(s) that you are using. One disadvantage to using online firms is that you have to do the leg work yourself. If you are at a Merrill Lynch or such, you make one call and then someone else does the leg work. Of course, you pay for this as well.
The catch - I have yet to see this in the futures industry. Having come from a stock brokerage background and now a full-time futures trader, I can tell you that the futures brokerages are WAY behind in terms of this kind of stuff - proper estate planning documents, statements, online services, etc. As far as I am concerned, the futures industry is decades behind the major stock brokerages out there. I mentioned once to Eliot at Mirus Futures that with my knowledge of the stock side and his knowledge of the futures side, we could create a futures FCM that was actually customer friendly...
