Life insurance can be a key component of a divorce settlement. This type of insurance is often used to ensure that there will be enough money to support the children if the parent paying child support dies. It is a means of supporting one’s children that even death cannot stop. But in order for life insurance to work one parent must have a life insurance policy. If neither parent has life insurance, there may not be a fund from which such support can be paid.
Courts can work to avoid this situation by ordering parents to maintain, even after divorce, a life insurance policy that names their children, the other parent, or even a testamentary trust as beneficiaries.
Sometimes the parent paying support will be ordered to obtain a new policy of insurance to serve this purpose and sometimes the court will order the division of an existing policy so that it can serve this purpose; every case is different, and such a decision depends upon a variety of factors, ranging from a consideration of the relative income of the parties and the nature, scope, and extent of the resultant estate each parent realizes following the divorce.
Supporting a child is an essential component of “providing for” our children, whether it is in the context of on-going monthly financial payments, emotional and psychological support, academic and sporting support, and yes, even making provision for continuing financial support after we have died. Raising children and effectively supporting children during their youth, adolescence, and beyond is an imperative responsibility that should be accepted with grace and willingness to self-sacrifice and even suffer hardship so that your children can flourish. If you are dependent upon the other parent for financial support for your child do not hesitate to ask for a policy of life insurance insuring the life of the paying parent with which to provide a fund from which such support can continue.
And if your ex wants you to provide a policy of life insurance to provide for your child after you die don’t respond negatively; dig deep and put the needs of your child ahead of your own; it is an investment in the future, in a child who is innocent in the dynamic of divorce, and it is a sacrifice that will live on long after you are gone in the rewards it provides to your legacy, your child.