Estate Planning After Divorce in Arkansas: What the Law Fixes — and What It Doesn't

Ask most newly divorced Arkansans whether their ex can still inherit from them, and you'll hear a confident "no — we got divorced." That confidence is about half right, and the wrong half is expensive. Arkansas law does automatically strip an ex-spouse out of your will. But your trust, your life insurance, your 401(k), and your pay-on-death bank accounts live under different rules — and several of them will still pay your ex, in full, no matter what your decree says.

What Arkansas Law Does Automatically

Your will. Under A.C.A. § 28-25-109(b), a finalized divorce automatically revokes every provision in your existing will that benefits your ex-spouse. The law treats the ex as if they died before you. Helpful — but it's a scalpel, not a rewrite. The statute removes the ex-spouse; it does not name replacements. If your will left everything to your ex and named them executor, with no contingent beneficiaries or successor executor, the revoked gifts can fall into partial intestacy under A.C.A. § 28-9-214 — meaning Arkansas's default inheritance rules decide who gets those assets, and a court appoints whoever it likes to run your estate. So even where the law "fixes" your will, you still need a new one.

Spousal power of attorney. Under the Arkansas Uniform Power of Attorney Act (A.C.A. § 28-68-110(b)(3)), your spouse's authority as your agent is automatically revoked when a divorce, annulment, or legal separation action is filed — unless the document says otherwise. If you granted your ex a financial POA and never revoked it, double-check this one; the filing itself cut off their authority, but notifying your banks in writing is still smart.

What Arkansas Law Does NOT Fix

Revocable living trusts. This is the big trap. Under A.C.A. § 28-73-602, the automatic revocation-on-divorce rule applies to wills — not to trusts. If your ex is a beneficiary, trustee, or successor trustee of your revocable trust, they stay in all of those roles until you execute a formal, notarized trust amendment removing them. People who did "proper" estate planning with a trust are paradoxically more exposed than people with a simple will. If you have a trust, this is your first estate task after the decree.

Life insurance. A.C.A. § 28-25-111 makes a change of life insurance beneficiary through a will or trust completely ineffective unless it's done according to the insurance contract's own terms. Translation: the only thing that changes your beneficiary is the insurer's own change-of-beneficiary form, signed and submitted to the carrier. Naming someone new in your will does nothing.

401(k)s and employer plans. For ERISA-governed accounts — 401(k)s, employer group life insurance — the federal "plan documents rule" preempts state law entirely. The plan administrator must pay whoever is named on the beneficiary form on file, even if that's your ex, even if your decree awards the account to you, even if your ex waived the benefit in the settlement. Courts have enforced this again and again. The fix is the same: a new beneficiary designation form with the plan, not a court order.

IRAs and POD/TOD accounts. These pass by contract, outside your will and outside the revocation statute. Update each one directly with the institution.

Your Post-Divorce Estate Checklist

Work through it in this order, and finish within the first 90 days after the decree:

1. Inventory every beneficiary designation. Life insurance, 401(k)/403(b), IRAs, pensions, POD/TOD bank and brokerage accounts, annuities, HSAs. List what's on file today — not what you assume is on file.
2. Amend the trust (if you have one). Remove the ex as beneficiary, trustee, and successor trustee via a formal notarized amendment.
3. Submit new beneficiary forms to every insurer, plan, and financial institution. Keep confirmation of each change.
4. Execute a new will. Name new beneficiaries, a new executor, and — if you have minor children — your chosen guardian. This also closes the partial-intestacy gap § 28-25-109 leaves behind.
5. Sign a new financial POA and healthcare directive. Your ex's agent authority ended at filing, but if you haven't named a replacement, nobody has authority if you're incapacitated.
6. Re-titling check. Confirm jointly held assets were actually retitled per the decree — deeds recorded, vehicle titles transferred — since joint ownership with survivorship rights can override your new will.

One caution that runs the other direction: if you're still in the divorce rather than past it, don't rush to change beneficiaries mid-case. Courts routinely restrict asset and beneficiary changes while a divorce is pending, and your decree may also require you to maintain life insurance naming your ex as beneficiary to secure alimony or child support. Read the decree before you rewrite anything — obligations in it override your preferences.

The Cost of Doing Nothing

The failure mode here is quiet. Nothing bounces, nothing warns you — the beneficiary form just sits there until a death or incapacity turns it into a payout to your ex or a court fight your family pays for. An estate attorney in Arkansas typically bills $250–$450 an hour to untangle it after the fact; the update itself is mostly forms and an afternoon.

The Arkansas After-Divorce Checklist includes an estate-documents checklist and a beneficiary-update tracker that walk every account type — will, trust, insurance, retirement, POD — with a place to log each confirmation as it comes back. If estate cleanup is the task you keep pushing to next month, that's the worksheet that gets it finished.

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