You might have been able to make a case that there IS no 'wife' if she had not been named on the policy. But not after your reply and after my research.
Basically, unless the property settlement in the divorce specifically states the ex gives up all rights to the insurance policy, she gets it, according to Hughes v. Scholl, 900 S.W.2d 606 (Ky. 1995) and Ping v. Denton , 562 S.W.2d 314 (Ky. 1978),
In Hughes, Kentucky's Supreme Court declined to retreat from Ping and held that the rights of an insurance policy beneficiary, including the right to receive the policy's proceeds upon the insured's death, are not affected by the mere fact of a divorce between the beneficiary and the insured.
It hastened to add, however, that its holding did not limit the power of divorcing parties to provide for termination of either spouse's beneficiary expectancy in a property settlement agreement. Trial courts are likewise free to include specific provisions in a divorce decree divesting one spouse's interests in the other's insurance policy proceeds.
The divestiture language should be clear and specific, the court warned, because a general waiver of any interest in the property of the other spouse is insufficient to destroy a beneficiary's right to receive insurance policy proceeds.
