## Facts

- James Richard Miles (husband) and Theodora Miles (wife) divorced after a long-term marriage.
- Their 2000 settlement agreement, incorporated into the divorce decree, required the husband to maintain the wife’s health and dental insurance through his employer until she remarried or obtained employment providing comparable coverage.
- The agreement expressly waived alimony for both parties and did not expressly limit a court’s authority to modify the insurance obligation.
- About six years later, the husband suffered major medical conditions and became totally disabled, reducing his income to disability benefits of about $1,830 per month.
- The husband paid about $370 per month to maintain the wife’s coverage; other premium costs increased as well.
- During the same period, the wife’s income increased from roughly $28,000 to $45,000 per year; she had not remarried and did not have employer-provided insurance.
- The husband sought to terminate (or modify) the insurance obligation and also requested a child-support reduction.

## Issues

1. Whether a divorce-decree provision requiring a former spouse to maintain health and dental insurance for the other spouse is, as a matter of law, a modifiable incident of support or a nonmodifiable, property-like obligation when the agreement waives alimony and contains no express nonmodification clause.
2. Whether the record showed a substantial change in circumstances sufficient to justify modification of the insurance obligation.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of South Carolina reversed the family court and the court of appeals and remanded.
- The court held that, unless an agreement clearly provides otherwise, an obligation to maintain health insurance for a former spouse is an incident of support and is modifiable.
- The court concluded the agreement here created a modifiable support obligation because it contained no language limiting judicial modification.
- The court determined the record reflected a substantial change in circumstances: the husband’s earning capacity significantly diminished due to disability while the wife’s financial circumstances substantially improved.
- The family court on remand was directed to determine the appropriate modification consistent with the obligation’s classification as support.

## Legal Principles

- Unless a divorce agreement clearly provides otherwise, a provision requiring one spouse to maintain health (and related) insurance for the other spouse is treated as support rather than property division.
- Support obligations are generally subject to modification upon a substantial change in circumstances, absent an express contractual restriction on modification.
- A waiver of periodic alimony does not, by itself, convert an ongoing, contingent insurance-coverage obligation into a nonmodifiable property award; courts consider the function and contingencies of the obligation.

## Conclusion

The court held that a former spouse’s contractual duty to maintain the other spouse’s health and dental insurance is presumptively a modifiable incident of support absent clear language restricting modification, and it ordered remand because the record showed substantial post-decree changes in the parties’ financial circumstances warranting modification.


Miles v. Miles, 711 S.E.2d 880 (S.C. 2011)