Life Insurance

Life Insurance to Secure Alimony Obligation.  The trial judge in Braun also ordered the husband to maintain $500,000 in life insurance for the benefit of the three (3) children but made no provision to secure the wife’s alimony award although, as the Appeals Court noted, she had authority to do so pursuant to GL c.208 s.36.  The Appeals Court found that the judge did not abuse her discretion as to the amount of the life insurance obligation.
 
The Appeals Court was impressed, however, with the vast disparity in the incomes of the parties and the wife’s dubious prospects for meaningful employment in the future. Accordingly, the Appeals Court remanded to the trial judge for further consideration the issue of whether the husband should be required to maintain and fund life insurance as security for his alimony obligation and “if she denies the wife any security, to explain her decision.” Braun v. Braun, 68 Mass.App.Ct. 846 (May 4, 2007)
 
Life Insurance to Secure Alimony is not Improper Post-Mortem Alimony Award.  The husband appealed from a judgment in the Probate and Family Court which provided the wife with security in the event the husband died while under an alimony obligation to her. He argued that this amounted to an award of “post-death alimony” and that, since Massachusetts law mandates that alimony terminate upon the payor’s death unless otherwise agreed, such a requirement was unlawful. The Appeals Court affirmed the judgment, relaying on Braun v. Braun, 68 Mass.App.Crt. 846, 856 (2007), in which it held, “a judge may order that a party maintain life insurance as security for alimony even where the order for alimony does not continue after the support obligor’s death.” The Court continued: “[s]such an order, and the payments of premiums, may be seen as a component of alimony and other payment requirements.” There is no post-death alimony obligation because “payments under the policy flow from the insurer to the beneficiary” and not from the obligor’s estate to the beneficiary. Mastrocola v. Mastrocola, 81 Mass.App.Ct. 1122 (March 19, 2012)