Joint accounts pass to the survivor
Wyoming follows the standard multi-party account structure most states use for bank accounts: a joint account set up with survivorship language passes to the surviving owner or owners automatically at death, without a probate proceeding for those funds.
P.O.D. designations work independently
A payable-on-death (P.O.D.) designation on a Wyoming bank account lets the owner retain full control during their own lifetime. The named beneficiary has no rights to the account while the owner is alive, and can access the funds only after the owner dies, claiming whatever remains directly from the bank without needing to go through probate court.
A genuinely simpler process than the real-estate TOD deed
Worth noting directly: setting up survivorship or a P.O.D. designation on a Wyoming bank account is considerably simpler than using the state's real-estate transfer-on-death deed. There's no notary requirement, no county clerk recording, and certainly no equivalent of the mandatory Medicaid-clearance certificate from the Wyoming Department of Health that real estate TOD deeds require as part of clearing title. Setting up a bank account's survivorship or beneficiary designation is typically just a matter of completing the bank's own account paperwork.
Real estate follows a related, but far more involved, framework
The same basic survivorship concept extends to real estate under Wyoming's joint tenancy and tenancy-by-the-entirety rules, though real property follows its own, genuinely more involved framework, including some real tension in the case law over exactly what deed language creates survivorship for married couples.
Life insurance and retirement accounts
Life insurance and retirement accounts like a 401(k) or IRA follow the same basic beneficiary-designation rule as P.O.D. bank accounts: the named beneficiary receives the asset directly, outside probate, as long as they're alive when the owner dies. Either one becomes part of the probate estate only if no beneficiary was ever named, every named beneficiary predeceased the owner with no contingent beneficiary in place, or the policy or plan names the owner's own estate.