Separation could be a more financially secure alternative for people over 55 considering divorce says an expert. Photo credit: Getty
Getty
Thinking about getting a divorce after 55?
Healthcare could make legal separation or just separating a wiser choice, suggests attorney Richard Neuworth.
He will be leading a discussion on the impact of divorce on benefits for older people and the disabled at the National Aging and Law Conference of the American Bar Association this fall.
“If many people understood the long-term care and health insurance consequences, they might decide instead to get a separation agreement or give up on the divorce. If you don’t have health insurance and you have a serious accident or illness, financially you are done,” warns the expert.
While the only avenue to long term care for millions of Americans is Medicaid, many people are under the misimpression, you have to get divorced to get the benefit.
“Nothing could be further from the truth,” says Neuworth.
Separation, legal or informal, makes sense particularly at a time when longer life expectancies make the worry of outliving your savings a legitimate fear for a huge percentage of seniors particularly women.
This sad truth that has cost a significant later-in-life divorcees if they have unintentionally left a marriage too early and at too young to tap into a departing spouse’s Social Security regular retirement or disability benefits.
The thresholds for both are 10 years in a same sex or opposite sex marriage and be at least age 62 for the spouse seeking the payments if the other spouse is still alive. If the ex-spouse is deceased, the other may only be collected if the couple was legally married for 10 years once they are divorced.
The monthly payments available to a divorcing spouse range roughly from under $100 to $2,000.
For Social Security disability, the top is lower: about $1,500 for the non-disabled spouse , that has attained retirement age under a family benefit option.
For military pensions, there is a small benefit starting with 5 years of marriage while the spouse has been the service for 5 years and increases to 20. There is no minimum age.
The benefit for a non-military divorced spouse is similar to Social Security: under $100 to $2,000.
For military disability benefits, there is no minimum length of marriage when the disability is service related as long as the couple was married during the military service.
But be forewarned: if the disability to the military spouse happened while you were in the marriage and it wasn’t service connected (say he or she was injured in an auto accident on her way to the dry cleaners), you receive no monthly payments and you lose regular health care and long term care if the non-military spouse gets divorced.
To get a share of the benefits in all cases you’ll have to produce a marriage certificate and divorce decree.
For military benefits, you should obtain a DD Form 214 which proves when the military spouse’s discharge from the service.
If you go through with a divorce with the added problems of getting one at a later age, you will hardly be alone.
Since 1990, the percentage of people reaching and exceeding 50 getting divorced has doubled and is still growing.