Health insurance after divorce: your options and deadlines

Health insurance is the divorce cost that blindsides more people than any other. If you were covered under your spouse's employer plan, that coverage does not survive the divorce — the moment the decree is final, you are no longer an eligible dependent, and you're on a clock. Miss the deadlines and you can be locked out of coverage entirely until the next open enrollment, one emergency room visit away from financial disaster.

Your four realistic options

• Your own employer's plan: losing coverage through divorce is a qualifying life event, which opens a special enrollment window at your job — typically 30 days. This is almost always the cheapest option if it exists.
• COBRA: federal law lets you stay on your ex's employer plan for up to 36 months after a divorce. Same doctors, same coverage — but you pay the full premium plus a 2% administration fee, with zero employer subsidy. Expect $600–900/month for a single adult.
• The ACA marketplace: losing coverage triggers a 60-day special enrollment period at healthcare.gov. Premium subsidies are based on your new, post-divorce household income — which is often much lower than the married household's, making subsidies surprisingly generous.
• Medicaid or Medicare: if your post-divorce income is low enough, Medicaid may cover you at little or no cost, and enrollment is year-round. If you're 65 or older, Medicare is your primary system regardless of the divorce.

The deadlines, spelled out

1. You (or the plan) must notify the employer's plan administrator of the divorce within 60 days to preserve COBRA rights. Do not assume your ex or their HR department will handle this — send the notice yourself, in writing, and keep proof.
2. Once COBRA is offered, you have 60 days to elect it, and coverage is retroactive to the date you lost coverage if you do.
3. Your marketplace special enrollment period runs 60 days from the date coverage ended. Miss it and you wait for open enrollment in the fall.
4. If your own employer offers coverage, the special enrollment window there is often just 30 days. Check with HR the week the divorce is final, not the month after.

Coverage for the kids

Children don't lose coverage in a divorce — but someone has to carry them, and the decree should say who. Courts routinely order one parent to maintain the children's health insurance and split uncovered medical costs (deductibles, copays, orthodontics) by a set percentage. Get the split in writing, define what counts as a covered expense, and set a deadline for reimbursement — 30 days with receipts is standard. If the insuring parent's job situation is shaky, the decree should require notice of any coverage change and name a fallback plan, including CHIP, which covers kids in many middle-income households cheaply.

Negotiating health coverage into the settlement

Health insurance is a real number, and it belongs in the settlement math, not as an afterthought. A spouse who will pay $700/month for coverage that used to be free has an $8,400/year expense the other spouse doesn't — a legitimate basis for adjusting support. Some settlements have the employed spouse fund a set number of months of COBRA directly. If you're the one losing coverage, price your realistic option before agreeing to any support number, because 'I'll figure out insurance later' is how people end up uninsured.

Comparing your options in dollars

The right choice depends on your income, your doctors, and how long you need the coverage to last. Here's how the four paths typically compare for a single adult in 2025 — actual numbers vary by state and plan, so treat these as planning estimates and price your own situation at healthcare.gov before deciding.

The bottom line

Treat health insurance as a settlement issue and a deadline issue, not a detail. Notify the plan within 60 days, price COBRA against a subsidized marketplace plan before defaulting to either, nail down the kids' coverage and cost-splitting in the decree, and never let a coverage gap open — one uninsured hospitalization can cost more than the entire divorce.