Family Law

If John Logan has his way, sometime in the very near future, people across the globe will be able to purchase insurance coverage against the potential financial devastation often caused by divorce.

Logan, Chairman & CEO of SafeGuard Guaranty Corporation, a Nevis based insurance company with operational headquarters near Research Triangle Park in North Carolina, announced plans to offer divorce insurance internationally sometime in early 2007.

?We?re on the tail end of funding, but everything else is ready.? said Logan, ?I?m guessing six months or so depending on how fast we can come to terms with a few investors.?

The coverage will be geared toward rewarding people who have a long and successful marriage, not for people contemplating divorce in the immediate future, but will compensate those unfortunate enough to fall into the statistic of the 50% or so marriages that eventually fail year after year.

?You can?t buy flood insurance when it?s raining.? Logan remarks, ?It?s the same with us. This is precautionary coverage, like disability or cancer insurance. The facts are if you decide to build your house on a flood plain, you may never get flooded, but the odds against you are real. Today, the odds that your marriage may end in divorce are very real too, regardless of your socio-economic status.?

?Times have changed,? says Logan. ?Divorce rates here in the US haven?t changed much in 30 years, but back then typically only one parent in a household worked, they weren?t strapped with more house than they could afford, they had some savings in the bank and they had little, if any, credit card debt. If their marriage failed, there was an opportunity for the non-working spouse to create additional income in addition to any support they received. Today that landscape is much different. The typical household today has $2,000 or more in credit card debt, a much higher percentage of their overall income goes to their mortgage and both parents are working full time. If they split now, there?s little opportunity to find additional income to offset the costs of setting up an entirely new household. Add the average cost of $15,000 to $30,000 in legal fees for divorce here in the US and that?s a recipe for financial disaster. Most people overlook that. And it?s worse elsewhere.?

?We will provide a financial safety net for people who suffer the often devastating financial consequences of a failed marriage, but the biggest payout is for those policyholders that have a long and successful marriage.? said Logan. ?We want our policyholders to stay married for a long time, for obvious reasons, and we?re providing significant monetary incentive to do so, but we know divorce rates worldwide aren?t changing for the better anytime soon, so we?ll be here for those folks that need to start a new life too. If we can prevent even one child from spending a life in poverty, all the monetary benefits pale in comparison.?

Logan did not divulge the details of how the coverage works due to a pending business method patent application.

?I can tell you that it will be affordable to everyone and no one will be turned down,? said Logan.

Whether or not SafeGuard?s offering and business model will meet the public?s demand remains to be seen, but there?s little doubt the market potential is there with an estimated 10 million marriages expected to end in divorce by 2015 in the US alone.

Logan estimates the market at nearly $200 billion worldwide.

?This is big money. I?m sure once the industry digests how we?re making this work, some major players will surely join in, but in the short term we?ll make our current investors very, very happy,? he said.

Read it all at The Tech Journal South.