Clear Money Guide
What this guide covers
A quick view of the questions and evidence developed below.
Updated July 31, 2026. Quick answer: your divorce decree does not change who your 401(k) pays. For employer retirement plans and employer life insurance, federal law preempts the state statutes that automatically revoke an ex-spouse’s beneficiary designation — the Supreme Court settled it in Egelhoff v. Egelhoff, 532 U.S. 141 (2001) — so the plan pays whoever is on the form, even an ex-spouse, even decades later. The waiver language in your decree does not fix this; only a new beneficiary form does.
A one-hour paperwork sweep versus a lawsuit your heirs might lose.
An adviser rebuilding your post-divorce plan starts with exactly this sweep. The matching service below introduces you to advisers who pay to meet you.
Before you start, what actually happens. The form is run by Kapitalwise, our advisor-matching partner. Kapitalwise sends your details to advisers who pay for the introduction, so expect calls and texts. Clear Money Guide is paid when you submit the form, whether or not you ever hire anyone. This is free to you and there is no obligation to hire anyone.
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The map: which accounts follow which rule
ERISA plans (401(k), 403(b) generally, employer life insurance): the form controls, full stop — the Court reinforced in Kennedy that plan administrators pay the documents on file, and heirs are left suing the ex afterward to claw it back, sometimes successfully, always expensively. Individual life insurance and non-ERISA contracts: here state revocation-on-divorce statutes CAN work — Sveen v. Melin (2018) upheld them — but roughly half the states have such statutes and they differ, so “the law fixed it” is a coin flip you should never take. IRAs: not ERISA — state law and the custodian’s contract govern, which means the same coin flip. Wills: most states do revoke ex-spouse provisions automatically — which lulls people into assuming the same happens everywhere else. It does not.
The one-hour fix
The week the decree enters: pull every beneficiary form — 401(k), old 401(k)s at former employers, IRAs, life insurance, HSA, transfer-on-death registrations — and re-file each one. If the decree REQUIRES keeping the ex as beneficiary (it happens, especially securing support), that is a deliberate choice the form should match. The rest of the divorce-year clocks: the timing calculator · splitting the accounts themselves: what a QDRO must say.
Remarriage changes this by operation of law: a workplace plan pays your current spouse unless that spouse signs a witnessed consent — a prenup cannot do it, and a previous spouse’s consent does not carry over. Your IRA, meanwhile, still pays whoever is on the form.