My ex-husband assured me that I was still on his health insurance plan and would be for the month that I started a new job. We signed our divorce papers on February 26th, I started a new job at the beginning of March, and my new employer’s health insurance didn’t kick in until the following month. In the middle of March, I ran out of diabetes supplies, so I went to the pharmacy and asked the pharmacist if it would potentially be a problem. He assured me three times that it wouldn’t, and the transaction went through without issue, so I thought I was all good.
Now I have a debt collector contacting me for well over a grand in charges.
Do I have any options here besides just hanging my head and paying the bill?
Once the divorce was finalized, your spouse had the right to use a qualifying life event (QLE) to drop you from coverage. He could have waited until later in the 30-day window to make the change, but it seems he didn’t.
Unless the divorce decree specifically stated that he had to keep providing coverage or notify you when it ended, there’s not much you can do.
You should have received a COBRA packet when you were dropped, giving you the chance to sign up and pay for COBRA if you wanted to keep the benefits. I’m not sure if that was ever sent or if it went to an old address that wasn’t updated.
I always recommend that anyone going through a divorce makes sure the decree includes details about when benefits end and ensures timely notification of insurance termination.
Thank you for your detailed reply! After the divorce, I was just trying to get away as quickly as possible, and everything was a blur. I hope I never go through that again, but I definitely learned some lessons.
I did get a COBRA packet from my old job, but not from his insurance. Since he told me I was still on his plan, and I found out about this bill much later, I couldn’t do anything about it in time.
I was hoping for some kind of loophole to avoid it—like the divorce being signed but not finalized by the judge, my new insurance covering it, or his insurance already paying and not being able to take it back, or any other wishful thinking—but that’s life. I really appreciate you confirming this so I can stop imagining “what ifs” and just deal with this big bill.
It may be worth asking his employer for proof that the COBRA packet was sent in a timely manner.
If they sent it to an old address because you (he) failed to update to the correct address, there probably isn’t anything to be done. If they simply never sent it (and they are subject to COBRA), yo may have something.