Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in Florida

Re: Beneficiary

Assuming there is no will and you have no spouse, Florida will distribute the estate to your surviving grandchildren if all your children are deceased. If there are no surviving grandchildren nor any great-grandchildren, etc. then to your parents.

With a will, you can designate alternate beneficiaries rather than be at the mercy of intestacy law.

Re: Beneficiary

Without a will or a trust specifying otherwise, in the case of contemporaneous death, each person's estate is distributed as if the other(s) had predeceased. So, in your case, your estate would not go to your children's heirs or beneficiaries. It would go to your own next of kin. You can change that with certain provisions in your will or trust. You not only can name alternate beneficiaries, but you can also have a clause changing the default law about contemporaneous death (a survorship clause saying for instance that even if your children die at the same time as you, you still want your estate to be distributed as if they had survived).