Divorce and Your Insurance - Protect Yourself!

Divorce can be a hard financial situation for spouses and children. There's confusion and anger about assets and possessions.

To help manage financial issues, and stress, both parties should contact their agent(s) and make sure their insurance protection continues.

For automobile insurance, changes to the policy follow changes in ownership. Separation doesn’t automatically mean you can cancel your joint insurance.

And it's important to review your protection once you have a separate car.

Also for car insurance: If you have children who drive your cars, someone has to list them as drivers, in one household or the other. You can't both claim that you don't have a youthful operator, and you don't both have to keep them on your insurance as long as your child(ren) show up assigned to some car.

For home insurance, don’t take either spouse off the insurance until you have an agreement signed and finalized clarifying ownership.

Life insurance is another asset and you must talk about it with your attorney and an insurance agent as you go through divorce. We've seen a case where one spouse cashed in all his life insurance, then died before the divorce was final.

You should check with your insurance advisor, or us, about keeping insurance in place. With the usual emotions and distrust, it can be hard to work together on a joint asset during divorce, and property and liability insurance that has to benefit both of you

For guidance with homeowners and auto insurance, please visit our website or contact Zita Santos-Martinez at (732) 832-4132.

Article courtesy from our own producer, Glenn Tippy.