## Facts

- William Owen Logan and Frances Jeanne Logan (later Pritchard) married in 1947 and separated in 1966.
- An interlocutory divorce judgment in 1968 ordered William to maintain life insurance naming the couple’s minor children as beneficiaries until they reached majority.
- During marriage, premiums for William’s employer-provided group term life insurance were deducted from his salary.
- After separation, premiums were paid from William’s post-separation earnings, and the term coverage continued.
- William died in 1984; by then the children were adults, remained named beneficiaries, and received the policy proceeds.
- Jeanne filed probate claims seeking (1) a community property share of the term life insurance proceeds and (2) a community share of pension-related death benefits.
- The superior court denied both claims, concluding term life insurance was not community property subject to division.
- Jeanne appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether an employment-related term life insurance policy is divisible as community property when community funds paid premiums during marriage, but the insured survived those terms, later paid premiums with separate post-separation earnings, and died during a separately funded term.
2. Whether the former spouse was entitled to any community property share of pension-related death benefits payable upon the decedent’s death.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeal affirmed the probate orders denying both claims.
- The court held that term life insurance is generally not divisible as community property merely because community funds paid premiums for earlier terms.
- The court recognized exceptions: (1) proceeds are community property if the insured dies during a term paid with community funds; and (2) a divisible community asset may exist if the insured became uninsurable during a community-funded term, making renewal without proof of insurability valuable.
- Because William died during a post-separation term paid from separate earnings and there was no showing he became uninsurable during any community-funded term, Jeanne had no community interest in the proceeds.
- Jeanne’s claim to pension-related death benefits was also rejected on the record presented.

## Legal Principles

- Term life insurance provides protection only for the specific term purchased by the premium; absent uninsurability, payment for a term yields a fully consumed benefit when that term ends and the insured remains insurable.
- When the insured remains insurable, later coverage purchased with post-separation separate property is the insured’s separate property, even if earlier terms were funded by community property.
- Policy proceeds are community property if death occurs during a term paid with community funds.
- A renewal right in a term policy becomes a divisible community asset only if the insured becomes uninsurable during a community-funded term, because continued coverage then has independent value.

## Conclusion

The court affirmed denial of the former spouse’s claims, holding that earlier community-funded term-life premiums did not create a divisible community interest in proceeds where the insured remained insurable and died during a later, separately funded term, and it likewise upheld denial of any claimed community share in the asserted pension-related death benefits.


Estate of Logan, 191 Cal. App. 3d 319 (Ct. App. 1987)