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Most of us don’t realize that insurance can be used as a weapon in the battle that married couples, domestic partners or live-ins can wage when they split. These soon-to-be separated pairs often share auto, health, home, and even life insurance policies with each other named as beneficiary. In a domestic brawl they are all up for grabs.
Divorce can get nasty, and become even nastier if domestic violence is involved. And the violence doesn’t have to be physical. It’s defined as any pattern of behaviors—including economic—“used to gain or maintain power and control,” by the National Domestic Violence Hotline.
Controlling your job or ability to find one, closing credit cards or simply requiring you to justify anything you spend isn’t just a violation of your rights—it’s often seen as a gateway to more serious physical violence as the economic abuse escalates. At least 94% of domestic violence victims “have also experienced economic abuse,” says the National Domestic Violence Hotline.
More Fractured Families
The ongoing Covid pandemic has led to a proliferation of fractured families and, by extension, more domestic abuse. The website FormsPal, which offers free legal forms, says that there’s been a 21% increase in divorces initiated in 2021.
And 2022 could start off with the bang of a slamming door. January is known as “Divorce Month,” with a consistent rise in divorce filings after the first of the year, according to a University of Washington study. One reason is financial. Holiday spending “may be the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back,” says the website of Goldberg Jones, divorce attorneys.
The nearly 800,000 divorces annually in this country don’t begin to address all the other relationships that may be falling apart. The Pew Research Center says that more adults have lived in a relationship outside marriage than have ever been married. And lawyers say that these breakups, the fragility of these relationships and the potential for abuse can be even worse because they lack legal protection.
Family violence has also intensified. “On average nearly 20 people per minute are physically abused by an intimate partner in the United States,” says the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. And that constitutes more than 10 million per year.
‘An Invisible Weapon’
Most people are well aware of the horror stories about disaffected and violent spouses and partners. But they are ignorant about the many ways in which an abuser could take advantage economically.
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Source: https://www.forbes.com/advisor/insurance/insurance-revenge-during-divorce/
