How to Keep Your Ex Out of Your Estate Plan
When you go through a major life change, you think the moment of “finalizing” something will bring a sense of closure. But usually, it doesn’t. When my husband and I bought our house this fall, I was convinced I’d feel relieved the minute we signed the paperwork. Instead, we immediately plunged into the real work—packing, moving, cleaning out the old place, dealing with inspection repairs, and pretending we’d get around to changing the keypad code “tomorrow.” Weeks later, most of that list is still waiting for us. That weird gap between being “done” on paper and nowhere near done in reality is exactly where one of my listeners, Amy from Nashville, finds herself right now.
Amy is newly divorced after ten years of marriage. The court has signed off. The marital dissolution agreement is official. She is, in theory, “legally done.” But like so many people who reach this point, she quickly realized there’s a long list of loose ends that don’t magically handle themselves. One of the questions at the top of her list was: does she need to update her Will to remove her ex-spouse?
Yes, she should update it, but Tennessee law gives her (and other newly divorced people) a bit of protection. Once you’re divorced, any gifts in your Will to your former spouse, and any role you assigned them—executor, trustee—are automatically revoked. The law strips them out whether you update the document or not. It’s not perfect, but it does prevent the most obvious disasters.
However, the Will is only one piece of an estate plan, and often the least important one after a divorce. Many assets don’t pass according to a Will at all. They pass by contract. That includes retirement accounts, life insurance, investment accounts and payable-on-death bank accounts. These assets follow the beneficiary designation on file, not the terms of your Will, and Tennessee divorce law does not automatically revoke those designations. If your ex is still listed, your ex is still inheriting.
To understand why this matters, it helps to look at what has happened in a recent Tennessee case. Michael Birdwell died in 2022 with a TIAA-CREF retirement account still naming his ex-wife as the beneficiary. The divorce agreement stated that the account was his “sole and absolute” property, but that didn’t matter. Because he never filed the required beneficiary-change form, his ex-wife inherited the entire account—$269,851.64. The beneficiary designation ruled.
In some states (Tennessee isn’t one of them) divorce automatically revokes certain beneficiary designations. But even in states with strong automatic revocation laws, ERISA-governed plans like 401(k)s are completely unaffected, because ERISA, a federal law, preempts, or supersedes, state law. That means your ex could still inherit certain assets unless you personally update the beneficiary forms. Automatic revocation is a helpful safety net, but it is not a substitute for doing the actual follow-through.
Updating beneficiary designations is not the glamorous part of estate planning. It’s paperwork. But it is the paperwork that determines where the money actually goes. And, you should update your Will. You should also update your healthcare power of attorney and financial power of attorney. Even though Tennessee law revokes your ex-spouse’s authority in a healthcare power of attorney, it is always better to have a clean document that reflects your actual wishes in a crisis. But if you’re balancing limited energy, limited money, or limited patience, start with the beneficiary forms. They are the quickest, most impactful updates you can make.
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