After Your Divorce: Updating Your Insurance Policies

While it may seem like a small detail, updating all your various insurance policies after your divorce is an important task to remember to complete. Depending on how your post-divorce relationship is with your spouse and/or children, updating your insurance can have a dramatic impact on you and your family.

The most import policies to get sorted out after your divorce are your health, life (or disability), and auto insurance. Here are some helpful tips for each policy:
 

Health Insurance

If you plan on staying on your former spouse’s health care after your divorce, the federal law you’ll be working with is called COBRA. Unfortunately, there are very strict time limits for signing up for continued coverage, so it’s important to get this insurance issue taken care of right away.

If possible, verify that the plan administrator has been notified of COBRA election by non-employee spouse.
 

Life or Disability Insurance

If you have life insurance, you may want to change the plan’s beneficiary after your divorce (assuming the existing beneficiary is your former spouse). Even if you don’t want to change the beneficiary, you’ll still probably need to fill out new forms.

In many states, the original designation is automatically revoked by a divorce, so it’s important to check with your life insurance provider after your divorce and complete any additional paperwork that may be required.

If your spouse agreed, as part of your divorce negotiation, to buy or keep life or disability insurance with you or your kids as the beneficiaries, follow up and confirm that they’ve followed through on that commitment.

Your post-divorce task, then, is to follow up with a letter to the insurance company letting it know that you have this right, and asking to be notified if there’s any change in the policy or any problem with premium payments.

Send a certified copy of your divorce order with the provision about your access to information highlighted, and say you’ll be checking in regularly to confirm the order’s being complied with. Send a copy of the letter to your ex, too.

If you didn’t get an order like this from the court, or if your spouse bought the insurance later, then ask your former spouse to voluntarily provide you with documentation that the insurance is in place.
 

Auto Insurance

Finally, contact your auto insurance provider after your divorce and confirm the vehicle you’re currently driving is properly insured and that you are the sole owner of the insurance policy on that vehicle.

While it’s likely that after the car was transferred into your name alone a new policy was issued with you (and any driving-age children) as the only insured, it’s always a good idea to verify. Get a copy of your auto insurance declaration page and look to see who is covered.