Q. I am divorced and have two children with my first wife. At the time of the divorce, we negotiated and agreed that I would create an estate plan leaving all of my assets to my two children. At the time, my children were two and four. Now they are 17 and 15. We made this agreement because I had cancer years ago and life insurance was cost prohibitive. I am remarried and have two more children who are five and seven.
I recently tried to get life insurance again because I want to be able to have a safety net for my wife and younger children if something happens to me. It is still cost prohibitive.
Is there any way I can change our agreement? My first wife was not at all open to this conversation. I raised this with my ex for the first time when my seven-year-old was born. Since then, she has demanded to see a copy of my estate plan each year to verify that there are no changes. Do I have any options?
A. You always have options. Your best option here is to file a complaint for modification seeking permission to change your estate plan to divide your assets between your wife and all four of your children. I have no doubt a judge will find your subsequent marriage and birth of two additional children to be a material change in circumstances which would allow you to revisit this part of your agreement. Also, your children are older now so they are that much closer to emancipation meaning the amount you need to secure is less which is another change in circumstances.
Have you updated child support since the divorce? If not, I suggest you run some new child support calculations. If you don’t know her current income, you can make a conservative guess or use what she used to earn. In this way you know what your exposure is for increased child support before you throw a complaint for modification on the table. Her best defense is a good offense so if you ask for a modification of the estate plan, she will counterclaim and say you need to pay more child support.
The new guidelines go up to the first $400,000 of combined income so your support could be much higher. Of course, if her earnings have changed significantly her support might go down.
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