Health insurance after a divorce is a complicated issue in some respects for New Jersey families. The federal law is clear. After a divorce, an ex-spouse cannot be carried on employer-provided health insurance. Outside that, there are numerous ways that you can address the health insurance issue.
Each spouse will need to make their own insurance arrangements
If you are the one who will be losing your insurance, you will need to plan ahead for it. The good news is that you have numerous options. The first is that you can keep your current insurance for up to three years through COBRA. However, this is often expensive because the employer does not subsidize any of this coverage. You could negotiate in the divorce agreement about who foots how much of the bill.
One spouse keeps the children on their insurance
If there are children, you will discuss who is responsible for providing them with health insurance. The children could remain on an employer-sponsored health insurance plan even if you cannot. The extra cost of the children’s health insurance will be divided by the parents in the child support order. Given the importance of health insurance, this is something that will need to be covered in the divorce agreement. It requires advance planning to decide between the numerous options available. Health insurance considerations should be a part of your budget because the cost seems to keep increasing each year.
Divorce presents a number of long-term financial issues such as health insurance and property division. You need an attorney to help you work through these matters because you will have to negotiate all of these in the divorce agreement. Your attorney could handle the details as you seek to reach an agreement with the other spouse.