Divorce is one of life's most stressful detours. If you divorced recently — or anticipate a divorce in the coming months — you should review your insurance to make sure it meets your new obligations and financial situation.

Alimony, child support and mortgage payments, as well as your children's medical care and college tuition, are among the factors that must be finalized. For this reason, divorce has serious life insurance and health insurance implications. Whether you have life insurance and health insurance, or find that you have to buy coverage because of your new financial situation, neither should be overlooked in your divorce proceedings.

Life insurance

As part of a divorce settlement, the spouse who will be paying alimony and child support might need to buy a life insurance policy. That's because upon the death of that person, the ex-spouse would lose the alimony and child support that had been agreed on.

The spouse who receives alimony or child support should beware: The former spouse at first could agree to buy the insurance then change the beneficiary or stop paying premiums and lapse the policy. Norse Blazzard, an insurance law attorney with Blazzard & Hasenauer, P.C. in Pompano Beach, Fla., suggests including a stipulation in the divorce agreement requiring the ex-spouse to pay premiums to keep the insurance in force. Blazzard says the divorce agreement should also prevent the ex-spouse from changing the beneficiary. If the ex-spouse violates the agreement, he or she could be found in contempt of court and subject to fines or other penalties.

Blazzard also recommends that the ex-spouse making alimony or child support payments provide confirmation annually that the insurance policy is still in force and the ex-spouse is still listed as the beneficiary. If it's a cash value policy (such as whole life insurance), Blazzard suggests you get any information about recent transactions in the policy that could impact the death benefit, including loans or partial withdrawals. This requirement can be part of the divorce agreement.

If you are wondering what type of insurance you should buy to protect your alimony or child support obligations, most experts suggest you buy term life insurance instead of a permanent life insurance policy that accumulates cash value. That's because in divorce cases you're more likely concerned with pure insurance protection rather than building cash value. Term insurance premiums are less expensive than whole life insurance premiums; that may be an important consideration, particularly when you are undergoing an expensive life change such as a divorce.

Many divorcing couples wonder whether to retain their spouses as beneficiaries or name their children on their life insurance policies. If you are the spouse who is receiving alimony and child-support payments and you have an existing policy listing your ex-spouse as your beneficiary, you might opt to keep the policy in force. If your ex-spouse gained custody of the children at your death, he or she would then take on the financial burden of raising the children alone.

If your ex-spouse has remarried and has two household incomes, or he or she makes enough money to raise the children comfortably without additional financial support, you may decide to contact your insurance company to change your beneficiary. Many people name their children as the beneficiaries of life insurance but a minor cannot receive a life insurance benefit until they are age 18. If your children are under the age of 18, you likely will have to set up a trust in which a trustee oversees the funds until the children reach a certain age. Otherwise, the insurance company will hold the benefit until the children are 18.

For more, see How divorce affects your life insurance needs.

Health insurance

"Who will carry the health insurance for the kids?" is a question often negotiated during divorce proceedings. There are other health insurance questions that are equally important for divorcing couples. Make sure your health insurer has the most up-to-date family information, especially if there are custody issues. These may include:

• Changes in address or names (women may revert to their maiden names or remarry and change last names.)

• Informing an employer (and/or health plan administrator) when and if a spouse (and/or dependents) needs to be removed from your employer's group health plan. Remember, your insurer needs proof of divorce before any adjustments are made.

It's important to know that many divorcing couples have access to COBRA, a federal health insurance safety net, even though COBRA doesn't apply to all employers. If COBRA applies in your case, it guarantees that upon divorce you can buy 36 months of health insurance coverage through your former spouse's group health plan. When an employee notifies his or her employer of the divorce, the employer subject to COBRA will send notices to the family members on the policy, informing them of their right to COBRA coverage. A COBRA policy's cost is based on your current benefits and you would pay the full premiums (the employer no longer chips in). You may also have to pay an administrative charge of up to 2 percent.

Since COBRA benefits are meant to be short-term, your ex-spouse may want to consider securing another health insurance policy.

"If you are healthy, you may want to consider a private plan rather than taking the COBRA coverage. If you took the COBRA coverage and became ill during the three-year period, you might find that you were uninsurable at the end of three years, when the COBRA coverage expired," says Michele Sacks Lowenstein, a certified family law expert in San Diego. "A private plan, rather than a group plan under COBRA, would facilitate continuing coverage and might be worth any extra expense."

If both parties have group coverage available through their workplaces, the spouse who is dropped from the original health coverage can immediately pick up group coverage through his or her employer without waiting for an open enrollment period.

Either you or your ex-spouse's health insurance can cover your children. Remember that most HMOs are regional health care providers. Your children might still be insured by your spouse's policy, but if you and the children move outside the HMO's network of doctors and hospitals, coverage may be limited to emergency care only.

There's no reason for you both to name your children as dependents. If you can work through these issues amicably, the two of you should decide which group plan offers the best benefits for your children and put your children on that plan. Remember, notices about changes in benefits and rules will be mailed to the parent who holds that plan, even if that parent does not have custody. If you and your spouse aren't communicating, the courts will generally make sure the spouse with custody has all the necessary information to guarantee health care, such as medical records and insurance identification numbers.

Auto and home insurance

If both your name and your spouse's name are on your auto insurance policy, contact your auto insurer and ask for separate policies. Have your spouse removed from your auto insurance policy if he or she will no longer be driving your car.

If you are getting the house — typically your most valuable asset — make sure the home insurance policy is in your name. You might also want to review your personal property coverage limits. Since ownership of many of your joint assets will be divided between you and your spouse, you might want to reduce your personal property coverage to reflect the loss of some of those assets.