A. The policyowner is correct. The policyowner possesses the contractual ownership rights associated with a life insurance policy. Among those rights is the authority to designate the beneficiary and, when the beneficiary designation is revocable, to change that beneficiary in accordance with the policy's procedures.

The distinction between the policyowner and the insured is fundamental. They may be the same individual, but they do not have to be. In third-party ownership, one person owns the policy while another person's life is insured. In that arrangement, beneficiary-designation rights remain with the policyowner rather than automatically belonging to the insured.

The official Hawaiʻi Life-General Knowledge outline explicitly lists “Owner's rights” immediately alongside “Beneficiary designations,” including primary, contingent, revocable, irrevocable, common-disaster, minor, and class designations. Hawaiʻi law also recognizes beneficiary-designation information as a formal component of life-insurance records and directs insurers to pay applicable benefits to designated beneficiaries.

The producer has no independent authority to select a beneficiary, and neither does the insurer. The insured has that authority only when the insured also possesses the relevant ownership rights.

Reference topics: Owner's Rights; Beneficiary Designations; Third-Party Ownership; Revocable and Irrevocable Beneficiaries.

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