State of TN. My ex wife and I share joint custody of our two kids. There is no formal child support agreement in place because she and I made roughly the same income at the time of divorce and continue to. We each keep track of what we pay toward what we consider to be shared expenses for the kids (school fees, shoes, auto insurance, etc.) and "settle up" periodically.
With respect to health insurance, I have always carried the kids on my employer's healthcare plan. Her employer either doesn't offer it or it is prohibitively expensive. So, what we have always done is I have HR draft up a yearly letter stating "Here is what employee would be paying for insurance on himself, here is what it costs for him to add the children, here's the difference" and she pays me half of that difference monthly. We have done this for the last eight years, and this seems fair.
I remarried a few months ago, and in the process I gained four step children. My wife is leaving her current job, where she covered her four kids under their insurance plan and going to a work for a company with much better pay but no benefits, which is fine because I can use this as a qualifying event to add them, as well as her, to my insurance plan.
In my mind, the fair way to calculate my ex wife's liability for our children's insurance is still to calculate what I would pay for employee plus kids minus what I would pay for employee only and split that difference. She now contends that because my insurance premium doesn't change whether I'm covering just our kids or ours and my wife's kids as well that the number should be divided by the number of kids (now 6) and that she should effectively only have to pay me half of 1/3 of that number. I feel that this is a ridiculous assertion. Her liability for our kids insurance costs should not be a function of how many kids my wife has. Basically saying (in mathematical terms) that as the number of my wife's kids goes to infinity, my ex wife's liability to cover our kids goes to zero. I would think that, as it would be with child support, my wife's children, income, etc. would have no bearing on what she owes to support her own children.
Nevermind that there are other factors in play, such as the fact that a couple of my wife's children are also covered under their father's employer's insurance and adding them to my insurance is really just a matter of "because I can" convenience. We could leave them off of my insurance and enter into an agreement with their father to compensate him for his premiums, and then, according to how my ex wife thinks things should be divided, drive her liability back up, but I think that points to how silly her assertion is and why step children do not (right?) factor into a parent's responsibility to their own children.
Only this woman could take what I already feel is a very reasonable monthly amount to provide full health, dental, and vision coverage for her kids ($27/mo) and feel like she can figure out a way to pay even less. I've explained that if M y wife's kids didn't exist I would still be paying the same monthly amount to cover ours. Am I wrong?
With respect to health insurance, I have always carried the kids on my employer's healthcare plan. Her employer either doesn't offer it or it is prohibitively expensive. So, what we have always done is I have HR draft up a yearly letter stating "Here is what employee would be paying for insurance on himself, here is what it costs for him to add the children, here's the difference" and she pays me half of that difference monthly. We have done this for the last eight years, and this seems fair.
I remarried a few months ago, and in the process I gained four step children. My wife is leaving her current job, where she covered her four kids under their insurance plan and going to a work for a company with much better pay but no benefits, which is fine because I can use this as a qualifying event to add them, as well as her, to my insurance plan.
In my mind, the fair way to calculate my ex wife's liability for our children's insurance is still to calculate what I would pay for employee plus kids minus what I would pay for employee only and split that difference. She now contends that because my insurance premium doesn't change whether I'm covering just our kids or ours and my wife's kids as well that the number should be divided by the number of kids (now 6) and that she should effectively only have to pay me half of 1/3 of that number. I feel that this is a ridiculous assertion. Her liability for our kids insurance costs should not be a function of how many kids my wife has. Basically saying (in mathematical terms) that as the number of my wife's kids goes to infinity, my ex wife's liability to cover our kids goes to zero. I would think that, as it would be with child support, my wife's children, income, etc. would have no bearing on what she owes to support her own children.
Nevermind that there are other factors in play, such as the fact that a couple of my wife's children are also covered under their father's employer's insurance and adding them to my insurance is really just a matter of "because I can" convenience. We could leave them off of my insurance and enter into an agreement with their father to compensate him for his premiums, and then, according to how my ex wife thinks things should be divided, drive her liability back up, but I think that points to how silly her assertion is and why step children do not (right?) factor into a parent's responsibility to their own children.
Only this woman could take what I already feel is a very reasonable monthly amount to provide full health, dental, and vision coverage for her kids ($27/mo) and feel like she can figure out a way to pay even less. I've explained that if M y wife's kids didn't exist I would still be paying the same monthly amount to cover ours. Am I wrong?
