Life Insurance to Secure Alimony and Child Support in a Florida Divorce

Quick Summary: An alimony or child support order is only as reliable as the paying spouse's ability to keep paying it. Florida law gives judges a tool to protect against the risk that the paying spouse dies before the obligation ends: life insurance to secure alimony and child support. Under Fla. Stat. § 61.08(4), a court may order a party to purchase or maintain a life insurance policy (or bond) to protect an alimony award, but only after making specific findings that special circumstances warrant it. Under Fla. Stat. § 61.13(1)(c), a court has similar authority to secure a child support award. Here is how each provision works, what courts weigh before ordering coverage, who pays for it, and what happens if the policy lapses.

Most people think about alimony and child support in terms of monthly payments — a fixed dollar amount arriving on a fixed schedule for a fixed number of years. What often gets overlooked is the risk sitting underneath that arrangement: if the paying spouse dies before a durational alimony term ends or before the youngest child turns 18, the payments simply stop. For a recipient who structured a household budget, a mortgage, or a child's education around that support continuing, an unexpected death can be a financial emergency layered on top of a personal one. Florida law addresses that risk directly by letting courts require the paying spouse to carry life insurance naming the recipient (or the children) as beneficiary, in an amount tied to the remaining support obligation. This guide explains how that works in practice, and how it fits alongside related tools like the division of retirement accounts and the enforcement remedies available when a support order isn't honored.

1. Why Florida Courts Order Life Insurance to Secure Alimony and Child Support

Chapter 61 gives Florida courts broad authority to fashion a final judgment that actually protects the parties, not just one that looks correct on paper. Two related statutes, applying to two different obligations, get at the same underlying problem: an alimony or child support order does nothing for the recipient if the payor is no longer alive to comply with it. Life insurance functions as a financial backstop — if the payor dies while the obligation is still outstanding, the policy proceeds can replace some or all of the support that would otherwise be lost. Because this remedy touches both spousal and child support, it can come up in nearly any divorce involving a meaningful support award, particularly where one spouse's income or health makes early death a realistic financial risk to plan around rather than a scheduling formality.

2. Securing Alimony: Fla. Stat. § 61.08(4) and the "Special Circumstances" Requirement

Section 61.08(4) provides that "to the extent necessary to protect an award of alimony, the court may order the obligor to purchase or maintain a life insurance policy or a bond, or to otherwise secure such alimony award with any other assets that may be suitable for that purpose." Critically, the statute does not treat this as a routine add-on to every alimony award. The court must make specific, on-the-record findings that special circumstances justify requiring insurance or another security device. That means a party asking for this protection needs to put on evidence — not just assert in passing — of facts that make the risk of nonpayment through death or disability real: the payor's age, health history, occupation, existing coverage (or lack of it), the size and duration of the award, and the recipient's ability to otherwise provide for their own needs if payments stopped. A judge who orders life insurance without making these findings risks having the requirement struck on appeal, which is one reason this issue is often litigated carefully rather than assumed.

The statute also lets the court apportion the cost of the policy or bond between the parties based on each spouse's ability to pay. In practice, this means the paying spouse doesn't automatically absorb the full premium — a court can require the recipient to contribute, particularly where the recipient has meaningful income or assets of their own.

3. Securing Child Support: Fla. Stat. § 61.13(1)(c)

A parallel provision applies to child support. Fla. Stat. § 61.13(1)(c) states that "to the extent necessary to protect an award of child support, the court may order the obligor to purchase or maintain a life insurance policy or a bond, or to otherwise secure the child support award with any other assets which may be suitable for that purpose." The wording closely mirrors the alimony provision, and the underlying purpose is the same: making sure a child doesn't lose financial support because a parent died before the support obligation ended.

One meaningful difference is worth flagging directly rather than glossing over: unlike § 61.08(4), the text of § 61.13(1)(c) does not spell out an express "special circumstances" findings requirement the way the alimony statute does. That doesn't mean a life insurance order for child support is automatic — Florida courts still have to tie any order to the child's actual needs and to Chapter 61's guidelines-based support framework, and a request should still be supported by evidence of why security is warranted. But parties and courts should not assume the two provisions require an identical evidentiary showing; they are separate statutes addressing separate obligations, even though they use similar language.

4. Who Pays for the Policy? Cost Apportionment

Under either statute, life insurance to secure a support award is not free, and Florida law recognizes that. Premiums vary widely depending on the payor's age, health, and the face amount of coverage needed to match the remaining obligation — a young, healthy payor securing a modest, short-term award will pay far less than an older payor with health issues securing a large, long-term one. Courts weigh both parties' ability to pay when deciding who covers the premium, and a marital settlement agreement can also address this directly, spelling out who pays, how proof of payment is provided, and what recourse the recipient has if premiums go unpaid.

5. Choosing the Type and Amount of Coverage

Neither statute mandates a specific type or amount of insurance — that detail is worked out between the parties or ordered by the court based on the facts of the case. In practice, term life insurance is the most common vehicle because it is less expensive than permanent coverage and can be structured to run for roughly the length of the remaining support obligation (for example, a policy term that tracks a durational alimony award or that runs until the youngest child turns 18). The face amount is typically tied to the total remaining support the policy is meant to replace, though parties sometimes negotiate a lower, more affordable figure that only partially offsets the risk. Because these numbers depend entirely on the individual case — income, health, family circumstances — this is an area where a case-specific calculation from a family law attorney matters more than a general rule of thumb.

6. Naming Beneficiaries and Verifying the Policy Stays in Force

A life insurance requirement is only useful if the policy is actually in place and the right person is named to collect on it. Marital settlement agreements and final judgments that impose this requirement commonly also address how compliance will be confirmed — for example, requiring the payor to provide annual proof of coverage, to name the recipient (or a trust for the children's benefit) as an irrevocable beneficiary so the designation can't quietly be changed after the divorce, or to authorize the insurer to notify the recipient directly if a policy lapses for nonpayment. None of this is automatic; it has to be written into the judgment or agreement, which is why the drafting on the front end matters as much as the statutory authority itself.

7. What Happens If the Obligor Lets the Policy Lapse

A life insurance requirement is a court order, and failing to comply with it can be treated the same way as failing to make a support payment. If a payor lets a required policy lapse, the recipient can go back to court to enforce the judgment — including a motion for contempt — much the way a missed support payment is enforced under Fla. Stat. § 61.14. Because the harm from a lapsed policy may not become obvious until the payor has already died (at which point enforcement against that party is no longer possible), the verification tools discussed above — proof-of-coverage requirements, irrevocable beneficiary designations, insurer notice provisions — exist precisely to catch a lapse while there is still time to fix it.

8. Modifying or Terminating a Life Insurance Requirement

Circumstances change. A payor's health may improve, the underlying alimony or child support obligation may itself be modified for a substantial change in circumstances, or an alimony term may run its course entirely. Because the insurance requirement exists to secure the underlying support award, a party seeking to modify or eliminate it generally needs to show the same kind of substantial, material, and involuntary change in circumstances required for other post-judgment modifications — the insurance obligation typically rises or falls with the support obligation it protects, rather than existing as a permanently fixed requirement untethered from the underlying award.

9. Common Mistakes

• Requesting life insurance without evidence. Under § 61.08(4), a bare request isn't enough for alimony — the court needs specific findings of special circumstances, which means the requesting party needs to build a record.
• Assuming the payor automatically covers the full premium. Both statutes allow the court to apportion cost based on each party's ability to pay; this should be addressed directly in the judgment or settlement agreement, not left ambiguous.
• Leaving beneficiary designations unaddressed. A policy that exists but names the wrong beneficiary, or that the payor can freely change after the divorce, does not reliably protect the recipient.
• No mechanism to confirm the policy stays active. Without a proof-of-coverage requirement or insurer notice provision, a lapse may not surface until it's too late to do anything about it.
• Treating the coverage amount as a fixed, one-time calculation. As the remaining support obligation shrinks over time, the appropriate face amount may shrink too — agreements should say how, and how often, that gets revisited.

Frequently Asked Questions About Life Insurance to Secure Alimony and Child Support

Cited Sources

• Fla. Stat. § 61.08 — Alimony; subsection (4) authorizes life insurance or a bond to secure an alimony award, subject to specific findings of special circumstances and apportionment of cost.
• Fla. Stat. § 61.13 — Support of children; subsection (1)(c) authorizes life insurance or a bond to secure a child support award.
• Fla. Stat. § 61.14 — Enforcement and modification of support orders, including contempt for failure to comply with a court-ordered security requirement.

Deciding whether to request — or how to respond to a request for — life insurance to secure alimony or child support requires a clear-eyed look at the facts: health, income, the size of the award, and what actually happens to a family if support stops arriving. Doreen Yaffa, a Board Certified family law attorney, and the Yaffa Family Law Group alimony team help South Florida families build the record these statutes require and draft agreements that hold up if circumstances change, working alongside the firm's enforcement and modifications teams when a support order needs to be protected or revisited. View all our practice areas or contact us today for a confidential consultation.