I See... The Mormon Third Eye Divorce Insurance Policy

One lazy Saturday afternoon, while enjoying a forgettable television show in HD with the wife of my eternities, I was brutally blindsided by a commercial advertisement reminding me that the end of the world was near; an offer for “Divorce Insurance.”

I initially assessed that this unique insurance opportunity had emanated from an alternate reality.  Had Rod Serling from the Twilight Zone possessed my television? Did I hear/see right? Or was this just a random Saturday Night Live skit? I was momentarily stunned.

Insurance is usually a good thing. My life and family has been directly blessed by car and health insurance. The church encourages its members, as one of the dimensions of a holistic approach to temporal self-preparedness, to wisely invest in insurance to protect families from unexpected disasters beyond our control- loss of life, home, and livelihood.  I had assumed that doctrinally, the blessings of insurance should be reserved for terrible events beyond our control, and now I was pondering where divorce insurance might fit into this logical matrix.

According to snippets of the commercial and subsequent cursory Internet research, Divorce Insurance consists of a monthly premium which insures the bearer against the financial burdens incurred during the process of a divorce.  Unlike a pre-nup agreement, you do not need a romantic partner’s consent or awareness to purchase divorce insurance. All that is required is an internal, wild fear of divorce conditioned by rampant societal abandonment of morality, honor, and commitment.

I was too afraid to dig deeper into the details of this specific divorce insurance policy, but the creative mind of the Mormon Third Eye had to intellectually wander and ponder on what would seem to be the incredulous clauses included in this unique business product. How would the policy prorate premiums? Logically, they would have to charge men and women who had lived together before being married, the offspring of divorced parents, or those who had suffered through prior divorces, higher premiums. Would there be a policy discount for a long history of successful years of happy matrimony, or for those who received pre-marital counseling? Certainly, at a minimum, a robust divorce insurance business would create an enterprising subculture of marriage and family therapists and social researchers striving to dress the deeply emotional aspects of marriage relationships with more objective facts and figures on what works and what doesn’t. Would this be a good thing?

I know too many people who have suffered through the terrible trial of divorce and I have watched how some of them have courageously recovered to find a degree of contentment in their personal and public lives, but I have to say out loud- would divorce insurance make a measurable difference? I have always assumed that insurance could only nobly address unexpected, uncontrolled disasters. Just like welfare and extended, generous unemployment programs disincentivize work, wouldn’t acknowledgement of the surety of divorce confirmed by the purchase of such a policy disincentivize successful marriage?

I have never been divorced and don’t plan to be, so I’m going to pass on this insurance opportunity; it wouldn’t work for me. While trying to remain sensitive, I can’t imagine how difficult it must be for divorce survivors, so I’m not going to pretend to be an expert. However, it does seem wholly appropriate that Mormon Third Eye offer a different type of insurance policy- insurance AGAINST divorce. The MTE policy is free, and focuses only on what can be done to prevent divorce. It promises that earnest implementation of the general provisions of the policy by BOTH parties will reduce the possibility of divorce to near zero. It’s easy to read but challenging to implement, and can be found HERE: