Obligation to maintain life insurance
Tasara Masaya v. Peter Griffin and Deirdre Newman
This case is an appeal from a final order of the Family Part. Peter Griffin was married to Deirdre Newman in 1985. They had two children. In 2000 Griffin and Newman divorced. The parties’ Property Settlement Agreement required that the two children remain the beneficiaries of Griffin’s $150,000 policy and his employer life insurance policy until their emancipation. In 2004, Griffin had another child with Tasara Masaya. In 2005, Masaya filed a complaint for custody and child support. The Court entered a Consent Order that provided Masaya with child support, arrears, child costs, and required Griffin to obtain life insurance of $200,000 to secure his child support obligation. In 2006, Masaya sought to enforce the Order regarding the arrears and the life insurance. Although Griffin was in the hospital at the time, the judge without knowledge of the PSA, awarded Masaya’s child 85% of the life insurance.
Following Griffin’s death, an order to show cause was filed regarding the life insurance. The order to show cause informed the Court of the PSA, and the judge modified her previous Order. Masaya appealed. The appellate division cited Della Terza v. Estate of Della Terza, 276 N.J. Super. 46 (App. Div. 1994), when rendering its decision that “[w]hen incorporated in an agreement or court order, the parent’s obligation to provide such insurance for the benefit of his or her child gives the child an equitable interest in the proceeds of a policy of insurance on that parent’s life, regardless of the beneficiary designation in effect at the time or his or her death”.
When a child of a deceased parent has an equitable interest in the proceeds of a life insurance policy, i.e. they are the beneficiary, because the deceased parent has an obligation to provide such insurance, that interest is enforceable as an equitable assignment. Taking it one step further, when a parent has other children born after the order establishing the obligation to maintain life insurance for the child of the marriage, the prior obligation is enforceable regardless of a subsequent redesignation of beneficiaries. In essence, the first in time still has an enforceable right under the terms of the Property Settlement Agreement and a subsequent child and subsequent obligation, does not nullify that obligation.
Clients must be aware that if their Property Settlement Agreement obligates them to maintain a life insurance policy for the benefit of their child from the first marriage, oftentimes to secure a child support obligation, a subsequent remarriage and additional children born to that party do not trump their obligation to maintain satisfactory life insurance pursuant to the terms of their Agreement.