You should question your divorce attorney in Georgia what happens to your life insurance policy before entering into a divorce.
Other questions you should ask any competent divorce lawyer you intend to hire include:
- Do divorce affect the beneficiaries of life insurance policies?
- Is a spouse automatically covered by a life insurance policy?
- Is it necessary to leave life insurance to the spouse?
- Is life insurance considered an asset in the event of a divorce?
- Is it permissible for my ex-wife to hold a life insurance policy on me?
We’ll address all of these frequently asked issues concerning life insurance and divorce in this article.
Divorce can have a big impact on your and your spouse’s life insurance policies. Your current plans may be affected by divorce, but the court may order you to obtain extra life insurance as part of your case.
How to Change Your Life Insurance Beneficiary After a Divorce: A Step-by-Step Guide
As you may be aware, when you get life insurance, you must name a beneficiary, the person to whom the policy will pay out if you die.
Most married couples identify each other as beneficiaries on their life insurance policies. When you are divorced, talk to your financial advisor about going over all of your life insurance policies and modifying the beneficiaries to reflect your new situation.
You’ll almost probably want to name your new spouse as a beneficiary if you remarry.
Check with the various life insurance companies with which you have policies, as each will have its own beneficiary change procedures and documents.
If your spouse is specified as an irrevocable beneficiary on your policy, you won’t be able to change the beneficiary on your own. If your spouse refuses to accept the modification, the court will.
You may want to identify your children as beneficiaries, but keep in mind that payments cannot be made to them directly if they are minors. Instead, you can choose from three options:
Directing payment to a trust for the benefit of the children, appointing your ex-spouse as the beneficiary to manage your children’s funds.
Who Gets the Death Benefit After a Divorce, According to Georgia State Law?
With all of the changes that divorce brings, it’s natural for individuals to forget about their life insurance, and many people end up forgetting to change their beneficiary when they divorce. You could live for a long time.
If you don’t change your beneficiary, your ex-spouse could still be identified as the payor on your life insurance policy, leaving your adult children or new spouse without the benefits you expected from your entire life insurance policy.
Georgia law acknowledges this risk. It means that, unless your divorce decision provides otherwise, your spouse’s life insurance policy beneficiary status is immediately canceled following divorce. This safeguards you in case you neglect to alter the beneficiary.
However, because you did not name a new beneficiary, the probate court will have to decide who would receive the policy when you pass away. To avoid this problem, change the beneficiary yourself so you can choose where the money goes and keep control.
After a divorce, how does life insurance work?
The cash value of most non-simple term life insurance policies can be exchanged at any moment throughout the policy’s term. This monetary value is a marital asset that must be split in the event of a divorce.
As a result, once a divorce petition in Georgia is filed, neither party is allowed to change beneficiaries, cancel, or fail to pay on any existing life insurance policies. The policies are under the authority of the court and must be kept until the court decides how to distribute or alter them.
Is it true that child and spousal support deprives beneficiaries of life insurance?
When you get divorced, what happens to your life insurance policy?
The divorce court has the authority to decide what happens to your existing life insurance policies, and it may even require you to buy new ones.
When child support or spousal support is awarded as part of your case, the court creates an ongoing obligation for you to pay financial assistance to your spouse or children.
Your children are subject to the requirement until they reach the age of majority. It could be for a specific period of time or for the rest of their life.
In either situation, the court determines that your spouse and/or child will need financial support in the future. You can also protect your child by purchasing a Georgia child insurance policy.
If you die before your kid reaches the age of majority or before your spousal support duty period expires, your family will be left without those regular contributions for their support. Because of this risk, the court may require that any spousal or child support order be accompanied by a life insurance policy that covers the entire sum of the support owed to the spouse or child.
This provides a safety net in the event that you die before your support payments are completed, your ex-spouse or child will still receive the money.
Assume you’ve been advised that you require affordable life insurance in this situation. It’s vital to begin started as soon as possible in such a case because obtaining a policy can take four to six weeks and may involve a medical test.
You will be required to produce proof of the policy’s purchase to the court or your spouse’s attorney.
You may want to be added to the policy as a third party if you are a spouse who will be receiving spousal support backed by life insurance, or if your spouse is obliged to provide life insurance in order to get child support.
This allows you to keep track of the policy’s payment status and health, ensuring that your ex keeps it current, in force, and with the beneficiaries named by the court. If your spouse fails to pay the policy or tries to change the beneficiary, you’ll have enough time to act.
