Q.- An employee is terminating employment tomorrow and just told us that he was divorced 5 years ago. His wife has remained on our plan. Since his wife should never have been on our health coverage, do we have to offer her COBRA?
A.- Maybe not. Assuming your SPD clearly informed the employee that he had to tell you about a divorce in a certain period of time after the event, you may be able to deny COBRA to the ex-spouse. This is because the employee had an obligation to tell you about the spouse’s loss of plan eligibility. A COBRA election would have been afforded to the ex-spouse upon the divorce. Since the employee did not inform you of the divorce and should not have been covered under the active plan, you do not have to offer the spouse the right to continue coverage upon the employee’s termination.
