Legal Question in Family Law in California

You must be careful and be sure your spouse knows of this transition and can take action either to use COBRA benefits under your plan or get new insurance at their job. Be sure your marital agreement has clear provisions addressing this issue.

Unless you have a binding agreement or a court order, you are still under the temporary restraining orders issued automatically as part of signing the divorce petition if you are the petitioner, or receiving the summons if you are the respondent. One of them prohibits cancelling any insurance coverage without the other party's consent or a further court order. Your STBEx may also not be able to add coverage through their employer just because you cancel, if it is not open enrollment, because insurance companies know about these orders and generally do not consider it to be a "qualifying event" for changes outside open enrollment, until you are actually divorced. The good news is that if you can't do it now, it is all but certain that the divorce becoming final WILL be a qualifying event under your plan for you to drop the ex outside of open enrollment. I have never heard of a plan where that was not available to you.