Here are five things to do after your divorce is finished with a decree or judgment.

1. Check Your Health Insurance Coverage

When your divorce is finished, you must contact your health insurer right away. If you fail to inform your health insurer, it can have disastrous financial consequences because the insurer almost always has to drop coverage for the non-employee spouse. If you don’t let the insurer know, the non-employee spouse could miss out on the availability of COBRA coverage or their right to get a policy of their own outside of open enrollment. Even worse, if the non-employee spouse has a major medical event with huge bills, the insurer will likely seek reimbursement for those bills when they do find out later about the divorce.

2. Review and Change Beneficiaries

Review your life insurance policies, bank accounts, investment accounts, and retirement plans to see who is listed as beneficiary on each. After your divorce is finished it’s likely you’ll want to change those so your ex is no longer your beneficiary when you die. Be sure to read your decree carefully, because there are exceptions such as if the court orders a life insurance policy to be maintained to secure alimony payments.

After your divorce you can make many of these changes via computer

3. Transfer Car Titles

When spouses own cars together, the divorce decree usually orders that one spouse get this car and the other spouse gets the other car. If the cars are titled jointly, after your divorce is finished you need to transfer the car titles so that ownership is individual instead of joint. See your local DMV or registration authority for proper forms and fees. Here is a list of Oklahoma tag agencies who might be able to help.

4. Close Joint Accounts

This is true for both checking and savings accounts, and also for credit cards. After your divorce is finished you don’t want your former spouse to be able to access your bank accounts or charge up your credit cards. The best way to avoid these problems is to set up new accounts for yourself and close the joint accounts.

5. Change Your Name

Your divorce decree may have restored a former name to you. If so, after your divorce is finished go to DMV, Social Security, your banks, and so on, and change your name at these institutions to match what was ordered in your decree. You’ll probably need a certified copy (one issued and stamped as official by the court clerks) for this purpose.

For more information about the divorce process with Eggert Law Firm, click here.