HB 4622 Summary – Michigan (Introduced June 10, 2025)
Overview
- Purpose: Amend 1909 PA 259 (MCL 552.101 et seq.) to update divorce-related property and benefits provisions to be gender-neutral, and to clarify how life insurance, retirement benefits, and real estate are handled in divorces. The bill is tied to a constitutional amendment (HJR F’25) and would take effect only if that constitutional measure is approved.
- Policy area: Civil rights related to sexual orientation discrimination and family law governing marriage and divorce.
What the bill would change (key provisions)
- Gender neutrality and terminology
- Updates various references to use gender-neutral terms (e.g., “spouse”) in the relevant provisions of the law.
Life insurance, endowment, and annuity rights (Sec. 1)
- Each divorce or separate-maintenance judgment must determine the rights of both spouses to proceeds of life insurance, endowment, or annuity policies in which either spouse was named or designated as beneficiary.
- If the judgment does not determine the rights, the policy proceeds may be paid to the estate or to the named beneficiary as designated, with the insurer discharged from liability unless notified of a claim under the divorce.
Rights to the other spouse’s life-insurance interests (mirror provisions)
- The same determinations apply for the other spouse’s life-insurance interests; the policy proceeds may revert to the estate or designated beneficiary if not addressed by the judgment, with similar notice requirements.
Pension, retirement, and related benefits (Sec. 1, subsections)
- Requires each judgment to determine all rights (including contingent rights) of both spouses in:
- Vested pension, annuity, or retirement benefits
- Accumulated contributions in pension/retirement systems
- Unvested or contingent rights in pension/retirement benefits (per historical law)
- For divorces filed on or after September 1, 2006, if a judgment assigns rights to any pension/benefit, a proportionate share of all components of the benefits must be included in the assignment unless the judgment expressly excludes a component (components include supplements, early retirement, postretirement increases, surviving/spouse benefits, death benefits, etc.). This applies regardless of how the benefits are characterized (e.g., regular vs. early retirement).
Real estate ownership upon divorce (Sec. 2)
- Real estate owned as joint tenants or tenants by the entirety by spouses becomes tenants in common upon divorce, unless the divorce decree provides a different ownership arrangement.
Effective date and constitutional tie-in
- Enacting section 1 states that this amendatory act does not take effect unless a corresponding constitutional amendment (SJR HJR F’25) is approved and becomes part of the Michigan Constitution (Article XII, Section 1).
Affected parties
- Divorcing spouses and former spouses
- Life insurance, pension, and retirement-benefit plan administrators and insurers
- Real estate titleholders and recording offices
Timeline and status
- Filed: March 12, 2025
- Read first time: April 3, 2025
- Introduced: June 10, 2025
- Referred to Committee: Government Operations
- Status noted as electronically reproduced June 10, 2025
- Tie-bar requires passage of HJR F’25/SJR to take effect
Impact considerations
- Aligns divorce outcomes with a gender-neutral framework and clarifies distribution of life insurance and retirement benefits.
- Strengthens protections for both spouses’ rights in insurance and pensions and clarifies real estate ownership post-divorce.
- Conditional effectiveness means legislative and constitutional processes must both succeed for the bill to become law.
