As part of a married couple, you may have been covered by your spouse's health plan. If so, you may be worried that because your marriage is ending, your health insurance coverage will be ending too. And, if you have children, how will they be protected? Fortunately, laws exist that protect your rights and the rights of your children, so your options may not be as limited as you might think.

Health insurance coverage options for you
In general, when your marriage ends, there are four ways for you to get health insurance coverage:

Continue your health insurance temporarily through COBRA
The Consolidated Omnibus Reconciliation Act of 1986 (COBRA) is a federal law designed to protect employees and their dependents from losing coverage as a result of job loss or divorce. If your former spouse maintained family health coverage through work (and works for a company with at least 20 employees), you may continue this group coverage for up to 36 months after the divorce or legal separation. You will have to pay for this coverage, however. COBRA coverage will terminate sooner than 36 months if you remarry or obtain coverage under another group health plan.

Because individual policies are often more expensive than group policies, COBRA coverage is certainly attractive. If you decide to exercise your COBRA rights, your cost of continuing coverage cannot exceed 102 percent of the employer's cost for the insurance. Additionally, you have the right to pay the premiums in monthly installments.

Ask for health insurance coverage as part of your divorce settlement
When you are negotiating a divorce settlement, ask that your spouse be required to maintain health insurance coverage for you. This may not work if you can easily get health insurance coverage through your own employer. But if you're an older homemaker or self employed without access to employer-sponsored health coverage, you have a better chance of receiving this as part of your settlement. Otherwise, when the COBRA coverage terminates after 36 months, you may be denied health insurance if your health is poor (although federal law provides protections for certain pre-existing medical conditions).

Get coverage through your own employer
If you work and your employer offers health insurance coverage, sign up for it. Unless your spouse is paying for your health insurance coverage as part of your divorce settlement, this is probably the least expensive way for you to get health insurance.

Purchase an individual health insurance policy
In some cases, this may be your only option, especially after your right to insurance under COBRA ends. However, you'll have to pay the premiums for your own health insurance, try to compensate for this in your divorce settlement.

Providing health insurance for your children
When you are divorcing and you have children, you have to decide whether you or your soon-to-be former spouse will be responsible for providing health insurance for your children. This issue should be addressed in the child support section of your divorce agreement.

If both parents have health insurance through work, the simplest way to decide is to consider which plan offers the best coverage and insure the children under it. However, because this type of insurance can be expensive and emotions can run high during divorce negotiations, this point is rarely decided so easily.

Noncustodial parents sometimes assume that they won't be responsible for insuring the children because they don't care for them on a daily basis.  Under federal law, a custodial parent can obtain a Qualified Medical Child Support Order (QMCSO), if necessary, in order to get health insurance coverage for the children through the noncustodial parent's group health insurance plan.

The children cannot be denied coverage by the noncustodial parent, that parent's employer, or that parent's insurance company based on any of the following reasons:

• the child does not live with the noncustodial parent
• the child is not claimed as a dependent on the noncustodial parent's federal income tax return
• the child lives outside of the plan's service area

Along with covering an employee's child under an employer-sponsored health care plan, a QMCSO can require that:

• the premium be deducted from the employee's paycheck
• insurance reimbursements be made directly to the nonemployee parent (if that parent pays the provider)
• the nonemployee parent be given information if requested regarding the health care plan and reimbursements