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DBQprep | Getting out

Divorce: What Happens to Your Coverage

Not clinic-reviewed.

Divorce: What Happens to Your Coverage

TLDR

  • 20/20/20 met — your coverage continues as your own, under your own record.
  • 20/20/15 met — you get one year of TRICARE from the divorce date, with two things that can end it early.
  • Neither met — your TRICARE ends the day the divorce is final. The Continued Health Care Benefit Program (CHCBP) is the bridge you can buy.

First, the children's coverage doesn't move

Start here, because this is the fact most people get wrong.

The sponsor's biological and adopted children remain TRICARE-eligible after the divorce if they were otherwise eligible. Which parent has custody does not decide a child's basic eligibility. Report the divorce and any custody changes to the Defense Enrollment Eligibility Reporting System (DEERS) — the system that records eligibility — but the children's coverage itself does not turn on who has custody.

One exception, and it's the one that surprises people: a stepchild who was not adopted by the sponsor loses TRICARE eligibility when the marriage ends. That coverage ends on the final divorce or annulment date — same as a nonqualifying spouse. Biological and adopted children are not affected by this rule. Stepchildren are.

The three doors for the spouse

Door one — 20/20/20. This requires all three of the following to be true: the sponsor completed at least 20 years of creditable service toward retired pay, the marriage lasted at least 20 years, and the marriage overlapped that creditable service by at least 20 years. If you meet all three and remain unmarried, you stay TRICARE-eligible with benefits comparable to a retired family member. You're entered into DEERS under your own record and get your own identification (ID) card.

Door two — 20/20/15. This requires at least 20 years of creditable service, at least 20 years of marriage, and at least 15 years of overlap. This door gives you full TRICARE for one year from the date of divorce or annulment — not permanently.

Door three — neither threshold is met. Your TRICARE eligibility ends on the date the divorce or annulment becomes final. You need to update DEERS and surrender your dependent ID card.

If you remarry

This section covers TRICARE rules only.

If you're a 20/20/20 former spouse and you remarry, your TRICARE eligibility ends. If that later marriage ends, your former-spouse eligibility is not restored — there's no going back to it. The only way to continue coverage after that is through a new spouse who is themselves a uniformed-service member.

There is no age-55 rule in former-spouse TRICARE. If you've heard about an age-55 rule, that belongs to a different benefit — see the Survivor Benefit Plan (SBP) section below. Don't apply it here.

The bridge you can buy: CHCBP

CHCBP (Continued Health Care Benefit Program) is available to a former spouse who is unmarried, was covered by TRICARE or the Transitional Assistance Management Program (TAMP) the day before the divorce became final, and does not qualify for TRICARE as a former spouse under either door above.

You must purchase it within 60 days of losing TRICARE coverage — application and first premium both. calendar year 2026 (CY2026) premiums are $2,103 per quarter for individual coverage, $5,339 per quarter for family coverage.

It can last up to 36 months for a qualifying former spouse. Some former spouses may qualify for additional coverage beyond that, but the TRICARE contractor makes that determination — this page cannot promise you more than 36 months.

The clocks nobody tells you about

Divorce or annulment is a Qualifying Life Event. The sponsor and eligible children have 90 days from the divorce or annulment date to make eligible health-plan changes.

Two separate one-year clocks matter for former-spouse SBP, covered in the next section: the retiree's voluntary election window, and the former spouse's deemed-election filing window. Both run one year, but from different starting points — read the next section carefully rather than assuming they're the same clock.

The other signature: former-spouse SBP

SBP — Survivor Benefit Plan — is a monthly annuity for a surviving former spouse, established while the retiree is alive. It is a separate program from TRICARE, with its own rules.

The retiree may voluntarily elect former-spouse coverage within one year after the divorce decree. Separately, where a court order requires the coverage, the former spouse can use the deemed-election mechanism — submitting DD Form 2656-10, the court order, and the divorce decree to the Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS) within one year after the court order requiring the coverage.

The annuity is generally payable for life. But if the former spouse remarries before age 55, the annuity is suspended during that marriage. If that marriage later ends — by death, divorce, or annulment — payments reinstate, effective the first day of the month the marriage ends.

Read that again next to the remarriage section above: TRICARE and SBP are different systems with different remarriage rules. TRICARE former-spouse eligibility has no age-55 rule. SBP former-spouse coverage does. Don't let one rule bleed into the other — they are not the same benefit, and assuming they work the same way is the single most common mistake in this whole process.

The traps

Your TRICARE eligibility under door three ends on the date the divorce or annulment becomes final — not some later date, not when paperwork catches up.

You have 90 days from the divorce or annulment date to make eligible health-plan changes under the Qualifying Life Event rule.

The 20/20/15 one-year coverage ends early if you remarry, or if you're actually covered by or enrolled in an employer-sponsored health plan — being merely eligible for an employer plan does not trigger the early end.

CHCBP must be purchased within 60 days of losing TRICARE coverage.

Former-spouse SBP has two separate one-year windows: the retiree's voluntary election within one year of the decree, and the former spouse's deemed-election filing within one year of the court order.

A stepchild not adopted by the sponsor loses TRICARE eligibility on the final divorce or annulment date — the same date as a nonqualifying spouse, but this rule applies regardless of which door the spouse falls into.

Do not import the SBP age-55 remarriage rule into TRICARE. TRICARE former-spouse eligibility has no age-55 rule. That rule belongs to SBP only.

Where to go

  • DEERS/ID card office — eligibility records, ID cards, and the children's sponsor records.
  • DFAS — former-spouse SBP elections and deemed elections.
  • The TRICARE contractor — CHCBP enrollment.
  • The installation legal assistance office — what the court order says controls SBP, so get it reviewed before the decree is final.