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Protecting What Matters Most

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Insurance Checklist: Preparing Your Insurance Plan for a Divorce

You’ve acquired assets over the years, investing time and money in your career. Among those assets are your life and health insurance policies. Unfortunately, these policies tend to wind up on the back burner when preparing for a divorce, which can be a time-consuming and draining experience.

Safeguard your hard-earned assets with this insurance checklist, designed to provide you with a step-by-step guide on what to do before and after divorcing.

Before and After the Divorce: Steps to Take

When preparing your insurance checklist, it’s best to divide the tasks into before and after categories. Doing so will allow you to prioritize what to do before the divorce is granted and later focus on what needs to be done to tie up loose ends post-finalization.

The following actions should be taken before going through the divorce process:

  • Meet with your life and health insurance advisors

  • Revise your beneficiaries for any life insurance policies (both individual and employer-sponsored)

  • Update paperwork for your will or trust to reflect changes made to beneficiaries

  • Review employer-sponsored plans to verify that the change of beneficiaries is allowed

  • Update billing information and have all premium notices sent to your address

  • Make sure you have a way to receive, access and pay bills

  • Review the insurance checklist alongside your attorney to discuss necessary changes

  • Examine laws surrounding life insurance policies and beneficiaries with your attorney

When changing beneficiaries, consult with your insurance advisor and attorney. In some cases, judges are empowered to order the extension of insurance coverage during or after divorce proceedings.

The steps you take to revise insurance policies before divorcing can make the process more favorable for you in the long run. However, you will still need to take care of the following tasks after the divorce has been granted:

  • Contact your health insurance company about canceling coverage for your ex-spouse

  • Request that your insurance company contact him/her regarding COBRA coverage

  • If you have long-term care insurance with ex-spouse, contact the related insurance company to separate policies, change billing addresses, and update late payment contact information for both of you

Things to Keep In Mind

As you revise your insurance policy information, be sure to keep proper records of the requested changes and related paperwork. Updating your contact information will help protect you from late fees, missed statements and policy lapses.

While your children can stay on your health insurance plan, your ex-spouse cannot. You may find that you lose long-term care insurance discounts if you must separate policies after a divorce. While any required alimony payments will not affect existing disability insurance plans, they may affect how much you pay for disability insurance.

For more information about the best methods of handling insurance changes during a divorce and other life events, feel free to reach out to us or check out other articles that cover life events.

Speak with a TMA Insurance Trust Advisor:

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