Yes I would approve it they are the legal beneficiaries of all the rest of his assets. They will get that too if you are afraid of legal implications talk to a lawyer first but if there is no stipulations I would give it to them they are going through enough pain without having to go to court over this.god bless

No no no no no no!
If there are no named beneficiaries to your 401(k), then the ONLY legal beneficiary is the estate. The money might be needed to pay the decedent's bills, or might pass to other legal heirs. Not your call to make! Talk only to the Executor of the estate!

I would not make this call. Though it seems like the right and somewhat easy thing to do. You could find yourself being sued by the estate. Meaning the other people who may be entitled to that money say a wife or a daughter or someone else that you don't even know about. This is a really sticky situation I hope you have a legal department in your company to consult, which i'm guessing you don't since you are here asking this question. I'm really sorry for your loss but I wouldn't make this distribution without some legal advice to do so. It may cost you in the end. Good Luck.

This seems like a much too serious matter to be asking on a website. You should have written guidelines that will tell you the legal options in cases such as this. In fact, most 401Ks that I have seen clearly state that the money goes to the estate if beneficiaries are not named. You should tell the sons to have the executor of the estate contact you about this.

You don't have the authority to decide who the proper beneficiary of his 401k is when he did not designate one. The only place that money can go is to his estate, not directly to any individual.

The answer, as I suspected, was in our SPD. Thank you for the responses.