Does Divorce Revoke My Will and Beneficiary Designations in Washington?

You signed a will years ago, back when things were good, and it leaves everything to your spouse and names that spouse as personal representative. Your life insurance policy still lists the same person. So does the 401(k) from the job you took in 2016 and the payable-on-death form you filled out at the credit union without really reading it. Now you are in the middle of a divorce, or the decree just came through, and a question has started keeping you up: if something happened to you next month, would your ex still get everything?

For related help, see estate-planning help, power-of-attorney guide, and Washington probate guide.

Washington law anticipated this. Two statutes do a lot of quiet work in the background, and they cover more than most people expect. They also leave real gaps, and the gaps are where families get hurt.

Does my divorce automatically cut my ex out of my will?

Mostly, yes. Under RCW 11.12.051, if you make a will and your marriage or domestic partnership is later dissolved, invalidated, or terminated, all provisions in that will in favor of or granting any interest or power to your former spouse are revoked, unless the will expressly provides otherwise. The affected provisions are then read, and the property passes, as if your former spouse failed to survive you, having died at the time the decree of dissolution or declaration of invalidity was entered.

Notice the phrase "any interest or power." That language does two jobs. It wipes out the gifts, so the house, the accounts, and the residuary clause no longer flow to your ex. It also wipes out the appointments, so the nomination of your former spouse as personal representative or as trustee of a testamentary trust falls with it. The statute is remedial in nature and applies to decrees of dissolution and declarations of invalidity entered before, on, or after January 1, 1995.

Two limits matter a great deal. First, the will controls if it says so. The revocation applies "unless the will expressly provides otherwise," so a will that deliberately states you intend your former spouse to inherit even after a divorce will be honored on its own terms. That is unusual, but it is worth confirming your document contains no such clause. Second, and this is the one that surprises people, the statute names only your former spouse or former domestic partner. It says nothing about that person's family. If your will leaves a bequest to your former mother-in-law, names your ex's brother as your alternate personal representative, or creates a trust for a former stepchild, none of that is touched. Those provisions survive the divorce exactly as written.

There is also the question of what fills the hole. A revoked gift drops to whatever your will says happens next: an alternate beneficiary, or the residuary clause. If your will has no answer because it assumed your spouse would be there, part of your estate can end up distributed under Washington's intestate succession rules in RCW 11.04.015, which decide your heirs by statute rather than by anything you chose.

What happens to life insurance, retirement accounts, and POD beneficiaries?

Most wealth does not pass through a will anymore. It passes by beneficiary designation, and Washington addresses that separately in RCW 11.07.010.

That statute uses a broad definition of "nonprobate asset." It reaches life insurance, employee benefit plans, annuities, and individual retirement accounts with payable-on-death provisions, payable-on-death and transfer-on-death bank and brokerage accounts, joint accounts with survivorship rights, transfer-on-death securities and deeds, and a grantor trust that becomes effective or irrevocable only at the grantor's death. When a marriage is dissolved or invalidated, a provision made before that event relating to payment or transfer at death of your interest in a nonprobate asset in favor of your former spouse is revoked, and the former spouse is treated as if that person failed to survive you.

The exceptions in RCW 11.07.010 are the practical part. The revocation does not apply if the instrument governing the asset expressly provides otherwise, if a court order or decree requires you to maintain the asset for the benefit of your former spouse or your children, if an order requires you to maintain it for someone else's benefit, or if you could not have revoked the designation unilaterally because of the terms of the decree or for another reason. In plain terms, if your divorce decree obligated you to keep a life insurance policy in place for your children, the statute does not quietly undo the very obligation the court imposed.

The statute also protects the company holding the money. A payor is not liable for paying a former spouse before it has actual knowledge of the dissolution, and "actual knowledge" means written notice giving a reasonable opportunity to act. It becomes liable only for payments made after that. Someone who receives a payment with actual knowledge that the designation was revoked, or who receives it not for value, must return it or is personally liable for its value, while a good faith purchaser for value without notice is protected.

Read that sequence carefully, because it describes a lawsuit. The insurer writes the check to your ex, your children's guardian later has to prove the money was never theirs, and your family litigates the point after you are gone. The statute gives them a remedy. It does not give them a plan.

Which accounts does Washington law not reach?

This is the trap that has cost Washington families the most money, and the case that settled it came out of this state.

In Egelhoff v. Egelhoff, 532 U.S. 141 (2001), the United States Supreme Court held that ERISA preempts RCW 11.07.010 as applied to ERISA-governed plans, because the state statute has a connection with those plans and because administrators must pay benefits in accordance with the documents and instruments governing the plan. Washington's automatic revocation rule simply does not apply there. If your employer-sponsored retirement plan or your employer-provided group life insurance still names your former spouse, the administrator can be required to pay that person, divorce decree or not. RCW 11.07.010 acknowledges as much in its own definition, which excludes assets governed by controlling federal law.

Federal life insurance programs work the same way. In Hillman v. Maretta, 569 U.S. 483 (2013), the Court held that the Federal Employees' Group Life Insurance Act preempts a state law reallocating proceeds away from the named beneficiary, even through a post-payment cause of action. The Court reached a comparable result for Servicemembers' Group Life Insurance in Ridgway v. Ridgway, 454 U.S. 46 (1981), holding that the federal scheme overrides a state court order directing the proceeds elsewhere.

The workable rule is this: the state revocation statutes are a safety net for individually held accounts, not a substitute for filing a new beneficiary form on anything sponsored by an employer or the federal government. Check each account rather than assume. If a retirement plan is part of your property division, the mechanics of dividing it are their own subject, and I cover them at /posts/what-happens-to-retirement-accounts-in-divorce/.

Do these rules apply while my divorce is still pending?

Not the way people hope. Both statutes key off the actual end of the marriage: a dissolution, an invalidation or annulment, or a termination of a domestic partnership. A decree of legal separation is none of those. Neither is a filed petition, a signed separation contract, or a year of living apart while the case grinds through the Snohomish County Superior Court calendar in Everett.

That means the entire time your case is pending, your old will and your old beneficiary designations are fully live, and the person you are divorcing is still your spouse for every purpose that matters at death. It also means a will you sign during the case naming your soon to be former spouse is still caught by RCW 11.12.051 once the decree enters, because the statute reaches wills made before the dissolution.

What you can change during a pending case depends on your circumstances. Either party may ask the court for a temporary restraining order or preliminary injunction under RCW 26.09.060, including one restraining a party from transferring, removing, encumbering, concealing, or in any way disposing of property except in the usual course of business or for the necessities of life. Before you change anything, this is a conversation to have with your own attorney rather than a form to fill out on a bad night.

What does not fix itself when the decree is signed?

Powers of attorney are the exception to the pattern, and the exception runs the other direction. Under RCW 11.125.100(2)(c), an agent's authority terminates when an action is filed for the dissolution or annulment of the agent's marriage to the principal or for their legal separation, unless the power of attorney otherwise provides. That is triggered by the filing, not by the decree. What it does not do is name someone new. If your document designated no successor agent, you are left with an instrument that no one is authorized to act under, at the exact moment you are most likely to need one. Washington also does not make a power of attorney durable by default; express language is required under RCW 11.125.040.

Health care decisions need their own look. If you never named a health care agent, RCW 7.70.065 sets the default order of people authorized to give informed consent when a patient cannot, and a spouse sits high on that list for as long as the marriage exists.

Beyond the documents, nothing is self-executing. A decree awarding you the house does not record a deed; someone has to prepare and record one. A decree dividing a retirement plan does not move the money; the plan needs a qualifying order. Accounts are not retitled on their own.

A revocable living trust deserves particular attention. Do not assume it is untouched. RCW 11.07.010 treats a grantor trust that becomes effective or irrevocable only at the grantor's death as a nonprobate asset and generally revokes pre-decree death-transfer provisions favoring, or granting an interest or power to, a former spouse, subject to the statute's exceptions. Review and amend the trust anyway. Lifetime co-trustee authority and trusts that do not fit that statutory definition may be treated differently, and relying on an automatic revocation invites an avoidable dispute.

Washington adds one instrument most states do not have. A community property agreement under RCW 26.16.120 is a joint contract, executed in writing and acknowledged like a deed, and it may be altered or amended only in the same manner. It is not something one spouse quietly undoes, so if you signed one it belongs on the list your dissolution has to address directly.

What if we remarry each other?

RCW 11.12.051 handles that. Provisions revoked by the dissolution are revived if you remarry your former spouse or reregister the domestic partnership, so the old will can come back to life exactly as written.

RCW 11.07.010 contains no parallel revival provision for nonprobate assets. That mismatch is worth sitting with. A couple who divorces and later remarries can end up with a will that automatically restores the former spouse and a set of beneficiary designations that stay revoked: a plan that is half old and half new and matches nobody's intent.

Why divorce is the moment to rebuild the whole plan

The revocation statutes are a backstop for the worst case, not an estate plan. A divorce changes who raises your children, who manages money for them, who speaks for you in a hospital, who signs on your behalf, and what you own. Every one of those decisions lives in a different document, and only some of them are touched by RCW 11.12.051 and RCW 11.07.010.

Treat the estate plan as part of the divorce rather than a project for later: a new will, updated beneficiary forms on every account with an emphasis on the employer plans state law cannot reach, a fresh power of attorney with a successor named, health care documents naming the person you would actually choose, deeds and titles conformed to the decree, and a trust amendment if you have a trust. If you are starting from nothing, my walkthrough at /posts/how-do-i-make-a-valid-will-in-washington/ covers getting a valid Washington will in place.

If you are divorcing in Snohomish County and want your estate plan rebuilt to match the life you are actually going to live, call the Law Office of Chad Foster at 425.785.8679.