--- title: Can I Stay On My Ex’s Health Plan? description: If your ex wife or husband is insured through work, you can’t stay on the employer's health plan after divorce. authors: - name: Sarah Max url: https://money.com/author/sarah-max/ at_money_since: 2015 articles: 90 covers: - Insurance - Business - Career Advice - Credit - Housing - Investing - Personal Finance - Retirement - Taxes former_staff: true published: '2016-02-16T11:00:28.000Z' modified: '2024-04-16T09:56:45.000Z' section: Insurance tags: - couples and money - Divorce - Health Care - health insurance word_count: 366 canonical: https://money.com/can-i-stay-on-ex-health-plan/ type: Article source: structured-blocks --- > **Disclosure:** We research all brands listed and may earn a fee from our partners. Research and financial considerations may influence how brands are displayed. Not all brands are included. [Learn more](https://money.com/page/disclaimer/). ![pill bottle spilling out broken heart pills](https://img.money.com/2016/02/160216_bq_exhealthplan.jpg) Your marriage is over, but you’re still in love with your health insurance. Unfortunately, if you are insured through your ex's job, you can’t stay on that employer's health plan after your divorce. Some policies will even bump you off the plan after legal separation, says Penny Gusner, a consumer analyst with [Insure.com](http://www.insure.com/). There is one way to buy yourself some time: Pay for insurance under COBRA, a provision of the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act that lets you extend your existing coverage for up to 36 months. Not all plans and circumstances are covered, but organizations with 20 or more employees are typically required to offer the option. COBRA can be a good solution for short-term coverage. It might make sense if, for example, you have already met your deductible for the year, or you are about to start a new job with insurance and don’t want a gap in coverage. ***More Burning Questions: [What Happens to My Debts When I Die?](https://money.com/what-happens-debt-when-die/)*** Depending on your age and insurance needs, however, COBRA is likely to cost more than what you’d pay on your own, Gusner points out. With COBRA, you pay the full share of the premium—the employer no longer chips in—plus a 2% administration fee. Over the long run, most people are likely to do better shopping around for a comparable plan, moving into a lower cost plan with a [higher deductible](https://money.com/health-insurance-high-deductible-plans-risk/), or signing up for their own employer’s insurance, assuming that’s an option. In the case of divorce, you can move over to your own employer’s plan outside of the normal enrollment window. The grace period is typically 30 days. Similarly, you can shop for an individual insurance policy via the Health Insurance Marketplace outside of the normal open enrollment period if you lose your insurance and qualify for special enrollment. Given the high cost of health insurance—and the potentially catastrophic cost of going without—soon-to-be divorcees should be sure to factor it into the divorce settlement, says Bonnie Sewell, a certified financial planner and author of *Love-Jacked! Divorce Your Spouse, Not Your Dollars.* Don’t wait for the D-I-V-O-R-C-E to become final before you think through the cost of going it alone on health insurance. ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "@id": "https://money.com/can-i-stay-on-ex-health-plan/#breadcrumb", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://money.com" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Insurance", "item": "https://money.com/insurance/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "Health Insurance", "item": "https://money.com/health-insurance/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 4, "name": "Can I Stay On My Ex’s Health Plan?" } ] }, { "@type": "WebSite", "@id": "https://money.com/#website", "url": "https://money.com", "name": "Money", "publisher": { "@id": "https://money.com/#organization" } }, { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://money.com/can-i-stay-on-ex-health-plan/#webpage", "url": "https://money.com/can-i-stay-on-ex-health-plan/", "name": "Can I Stay On My Ex’s Health Plan?", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://money.com/#website" }, "datePublished": "2016-02-16T11:00:28.000Z", "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://money.com/can-i-stay-on-ex-health-plan/" }, "inLanguage": "en-US", "breadcrumb": { "@id": "https://money.com/can-i-stay-on-ex-health-plan/#breadcrumb" }, "dateModified": "2024-04-16T09:56:45.000Z" }, { "@type": "Article", "headline": "Can I Stay On My Ex’s Health Plan?", "articleSection": "Insurance", "image": [ { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://img.money.com/2016/02/160216_bq_exhealthplan.jpg", "width": 2100, "height": 1400, "caption": "160216_BQ_ExHealthPlan" } ], "author": [ { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sarah Max", "url": "https://money.com/author/sarah-max/", "@id": "https://money.com/author/sarah-max/#author" } ], "publisher": "https://money.com/#organization", "datePublished": "2016-02-16T11:00:28.000Z", "description": "If your ex wife or husband is insured through work, you can’t stay on the employer's health plan after divorce.", "abstract": "If your ex wife or husband is insured through work, you can’t stay on the employer's health plan after divorce.", "@id": "https://money.com/can-i-stay-on-ex-health-plan/", "inLanguage": "en-US", "dateModified": "2024-04-16T09:56:45.000Z", "wordCount": 366, "keywords": [ "couples and money", "Divorce", "Health Care", "health insurance" ], "about": [ { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Insurance", "sameAs": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insurance" ] }, { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Health insurance in the United States", "sameAs": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_insurance_in_the_United_States" ] } ] } ] } ```