Co-morbidity of reciprocal beneficiaries

My wife is my primary life insurance beneficiary, and I'm hers. We both have adult children from our previous marriages, and our own children are secondary beneficiaries on each of our policies.

I've assumed that if we were both to die at the same time, say in a car crash, her children would get her life insurance, and my children would get mine. That's probably OK, or "fair enough." And we've agreed (verbally) that if one of us died, we would share the life insurance with the surviving children in some manner.

HOWEVER, what would happen if one of us survived the crash but died a week later? It seems like the survivor would get the other's life insurance, only to automatically leave it to their own children a week later–leaving their step-children with nothing.

Is this correct? How close to the "same time" would we need to die in order for each of our secondary beneficiaries to collect? An hour? A day?

We don't have wills, and we need to get them done. For scenarios like this, if nothing else. Your response will help me convince my wife to get wills made.

submitted by /u/1962Michael
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