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Divorce involves an enormous amount of financial administration and life insurance is one of the areas most commonly pushed to the back of the queue. With over 100,000 divorces granted in England and Wales in 2023, and research from Legal & General showing that nearly 900,000 divorced individuals have not updated their wills to exclude former partners, it’s clear that protection arrangements are falling through the cracks for a significant number of people. The consequences can be serious: a payout going to the wrong person, a coverage gap at exactly the wrong moment, or a policy that simply no longer reflects the life you’re building after divorce.
This checklist is designed to help you work through every life insurance and protection consideration methodically, so nothing gets missed.
Before you can make any meaningful decisions, you need to know what you actually have in place. Gather the policy documents for every life insurance policy you hold — individually or jointly — and note down the following for each one: the type of policy (joint, single, decreasing, level term), the insurer’s name and contact details, the sum assured and the policy term, who is named as the beneficiary, whether the policy is written in trust, and whether it is linked to a mortgage.
If you cannot locate your documents, contact your insurer directly. You are entitled to a copy of your policy at any time. It’s also worth checking whether you have any group life insurance or death in service cover through your employer, as this is a separate arrangement that needs its own review.
If you have a joint life insurance policy with your ex-spouse, this is the most urgent item on your list. A joint policy will not cancel itself because you have divorced — it remains active, with both parties named, until someone takes action to change it.
You have three main options: transferring the policy into one person’s sole name, using the separation benefit to split it into two individual policies, or cancelling it and arranging new cover. The right route depends on your specific circumstances, your insurer’s terms, and the type of cover involved. If your policy includes a separation benefit, act promptly — most insurers require a request to be made within three to six months of the final order being granted. Legal & General, for example, specifies a six-month window. Missing this deadline removes the option entirely, meaning both parties would need to apply for new cover from scratch with full medical underwriting.
We recommend speaking to a qualified protection adviser before making any changes. Cancelling a joint policy without replacement cover in place — even briefly — could leave you and any dependants exposed.
Whether your policy is held individually or jointly, checking who is named as your beneficiary is a non-negotiable step. If your ex-spouse is still listed as the person to receive the payout, that is who the money will go to in the event of your death — regardless of your divorce, your will, or what you may have verbally agreed.
This applies to every policy you hold, including any personal life insurance policies that are not written in trust. Update the nominated beneficiary with your insurer directly, in writing. Keep a copy of the confirmation for your own records.
If any of your policies are written in trust, the process of updating your arrangements is more complex and depends entirely on the type of trust in place.
Under a discretionary trust, trustees have flexibility to decide how the payout is distributed, and you can usually update the list of potential beneficiaries or issue new guidance to the trustees. Under an absolute trust, the named beneficiaries are fixed and generally cannot be changed — which means if your ex-spouse is named under an absolute trust, the only practical option may be to replace the policy with a new arrangement structured correctly from the outset.
Trusts also name trustees — often a spouse — and this should be reviewed too. If your ex-spouse is a trustee on your policy, they retain a role in the management of any future payout, which may not be what you intend. Removing and replacing a trustee is possible under most discretionary trust deeds, but requires the correct legal documentation.
It’s also worth noting that only 18% of new UK life insurance policies are written in trust, according to Swiss Re’s 2023 research, meaning many people have policies sitting outside a trust altogether. If that applies to you, divorce is a good moment to consider putting a new policy — or an existing individual policy — into trust, to ensure any payout reaches your intended beneficiaries quickly and without unnecessary inheritance tax exposure.
Your financial responsibilities have almost certainly changed as a result of your divorce. The cover you arranged as a couple may no longer reflect what you actually need to protect as an individual.
Consider the following questions. Are you now the sole person responsible for a mortgage? Have you taken on sole financial responsibility for children? Has your income changed significantly? Research from Legal & General found that around 45% of divorcees experience an income reduction of approximately 30% in the year following separation, which makes both the affordability and the adequacy of your existing cover worth reviewing carefully.
If you are now carrying more financial risk than before — a sole mortgage, sole care of dependent children, or financial obligations under a court order — your sum assured may need to increase. If your responsibilities have reduced, there may be scope to reduce your cover and your premiums.
In some financial settlements, a court will require one or both parties to maintain a life insurance policy as a condition of the agreement — most commonly to protect maintenance or child support payments in the event of the paying party’s death. If this applies to your situation, it is essential that any new or existing policy meets the specific terms set out in the order, including the sum assured, the policy term, and who is named as the beneficiary or trustee.
If you are the party receiving maintenance and your ex-spouse is required to hold cover on their life, it is worth confirming that the policy is in place and remains active. A protection adviser can help you put an arrangement in place that satisfies court requirements and ensure both parties have the documentation they need.
Death in service benefit — the lump sum paid by your employer if you die while employed, typically two to four times your annual salary — is held in a discretionary trust and paid out according to a separate nomination of beneficiary form. Crucially, this nomination is not automatically revoked by divorce in the way that a will provision is.
This means that if your ex-spouse is named as the beneficiary on your expression of wish form with your employer or pension scheme, they may still receive the payout, even after your divorce is finalised. Contact your employer’s HR department or pension scheme administrator and update your nomination form as part of your post-divorce review. This is a simple step that is widely overlooked.
While updating your will is not strictly a life insurance task, it is inseparable from getting your protection arrangements in order. In England and Wales, divorce does revoke any gift or appointment made to an ex-spouse in an existing will — but it does not automatically redirect those assets to the right people. If your ex-spouse was your sole beneficiary and executor, your estate may end up being distributed under the rules of intestacy, which may not reflect your wishes at all.
Nearly 900,000 divorced individuals in the UK have not updated their wills following divorce, according to Legal & General research. If you are among them, this should be addressed as a matter of priority. A new will ensures that your estate — and any life insurance payout not held in trust — goes where you want it to go.
Once you have reviewed your existing policies and updated your arrangements, take a step back and consider whether what remains in place is sufficient for your life as it now stands.
There are several types of cover worth considering at this stage. If you are the primary or sole earner with dependent children, a family income benefit policy — which pays a regular income rather than a lump sum on death — can be a practical and affordable way to ensure your children are financially supported if the worst happens. If you are paying maintenance and are concerned about what would happen to those payments if you were unable to work due to illness or injury, income protection is worth exploring. And if you have taken on a new mortgage as a sole applicant, a decreasing term life insurance policy calibrated to that mortgage should be considered a priority, not an optional extra.
The ABI reported that 97.9% of individual protection claims were paid in 2024, with an average payout of £79,703 — a meaningful sum that underscores just how much is at stake when cover lapses or goes unreviewed.
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