2022 UT App 65

THE UTAH COURT OF APPEALS

VICKI BECKHAM,

Appellee,

v.

RANDALL BECKHAM,

Appellant.

Opinion

No. 20200935-CA

Filed May 19, 2022

Third District Court, Salt Lake Department

The Honorable Barry G. Lawrence

No. 194901020

Ben W. Lieberman, Attorney for Appellant

Ryan A. Rudd and Nicholas S. Nielsen, Attorneys

for Appellee

JUDGE DAVID N. MORTENSEN authored this Opinion, in which 

JUDGES GREGORY K. ORME and JILL M. POHLMAN concurred.

MORTENSEN, Judge:

¶1 When Vicki and Randall Beckham came before the district 

court for a bench trial on a divorce petition, Vicki1 asked the court 

to order that she be a named beneficiary under one of the thenexisting term life insurance policies on Randall. The court denied 

this request, a determination with which neither party takes issue. 

Despite both parties acknowledging that the policy had no value, 

however, and while expressly noting that the policy was not 

presented in evidence, the district court ordered Randall to 

reimburse Vicki the premiums she had paid for this “asset” for 

1. Our practice is to refer to parties by their first names when they 

share a last name.
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several years to the tune of $40,000. Randall appeals, claiming the 

district court erred in this award. We agree and reverse.

BACKGROUND2

¶2 During the divorce proceeding, Vicki and Randall

disputed how two term life insurance policies on Randall’s life 

should be treated. Vicki asserted that the court should award her 

a beneficiary interest in one of the policies. In ruling on the matter, 

the district court noted that the parties had failed to provide the 

court “with the policies at issue” and that it was “unclear whether 

these term life insurance policies were renewable by year, or after 

a number of years, or ended upon Randall’s death, or were 

terminated in the event of a divorce.” The court also stated that 

“Vicki’s counsel argued that they did not receive the policy in 

discovery,” and citing rule 37 of the Utah Rules of Civil 

Procedure, the court opined that “if that [was] the case, that issue 

could have and should have been resolved through the 

appropriate pretrial procedure.” See Utah R. Civ. P. 37(a)(1)(E) 

(“A party . . . may request that the judge enter an order . . . 

compelling discovery from a party who fails to make full and 

complete discovery.”).

¶3 Although the court determined that it “may award a life 

insurance beneficiary interest to a spouse upon divorce, under 

general principles of law concerning the apportionment of marital 

assets,” it declined to do so, reasoning that Vicki did not have a 

financial need for the insurance benefits, that the parties never 

reached an understanding regarding the apportionment of the life 

insurance policies, and that there was “no reason to perpetuate a

2. “On appeal from a bench trial, we view the evidence in a light 

most favorable to the trial court’s findings, and therefore recite the 

facts consistent with that standard.” Chesley v. Chesley, 2017 UT 

App 127, ¶ 2 n.2, 402 P.3d 65 (cleaned up).
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20200935-CA 3 2022 UT App 65

relationship between” the parties by granting Vicki a beneficiary 

interest in a policy on Randall’s life. Accordingly, the court 

concluded that the policies would “remain with Randall” and that 

he would “continue to control the beneficiary designation going 

forward.”

¶4 However, the court found that the parties had treated the 

“two policies as marital assets during the marriage,” that each 

party had “spent a significant amount on annual premiums,” that 

the “policies were clearly part of the parties’ future planning and 

provided a benefit to them,” and that the “evidence was clear that 

each party used their own funds to pay for the respective 

policies.” 

¶5 Accordingly, the court determined that Vicki should be 

reimbursed for her contribution to the premiums of one of the 

policies: 

[I]n the interest of fairness and equity, Vicki should 

be awarded $40,000 from Randall to reimburse her 

for the annual premiums she paid for the policy 

over the past eight years. The testimony at trial was 

very clear that each party used their own funds to 

pay for the respective policies. Thus, Vicki 

contributed to an asset that will remain with 

Randall; it is thus fair and equitable for him to 

reimburse her for the amounts she paid—amounts 

that have maintained the policy and allowed 

Randall to perpetuate that [p]olicy on behalf of his 

newly named beneficiaries. 

Randall appeals, asserting that the district court should not have 

ordered reimbursement of premiums paid during the marriage.
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20200935-CA 4 2022 UT App 65

ISSUE AND STANDARDS OF REVIEW

¶6 Randall argues that the district court erred “in invoking its 

equitable powers to order [him] to reimburse [Vicki] for term life 

insurance policy premiums paid during the marriage.” “A district 

court has considerable discretion considering property division in 

a divorce proceeding, thus its actions enjoy a presumption of 

validity. We will disturb the district court’s division only if there 

is a misunderstanding or misapplication of the law indicating an 

abuse of discretion.” Johnson v. Johnson, 2014 UT 21, ¶ 23, 330 P.3d 

704 (cleaned up). And “[w]hen a district court fashions an 

equitable remedy, we review it to determine whether the district 

court abused its discretion.” Collard v. Nagle Constr., Inc., 2006 UT 

72, ¶ 13, 149 P.3d 348; accord Kartchner v. Kartchner, 2014 UT App 

195, ¶ 14, 334 P.3d 1.

ANALYSIS

¶7 In a divorce proceeding, a district court is empowered to 

enter “equitable orders relating to the children, property, debts or 

obligations, and parties.” See Utah Code Ann. § 30-3-5(1)

(LexisNexis Supp. 2021). Here, the district court characterized the 

life insurance policy as a marital asset. Citing Utah Code section 

30-3-5, the court noted its authority to divide marital assets and 

indicated that the parties had “treated” the policy as a “marital 

asset[] during their marriage” and that “Vicki contributed to an 

asset that will remain with Randall.”

¶8 The court explicitly acknowledged that it did not have 

access to the life insurance policies because the parties did not

provide them to the court.3 Given this lacuna, the court 

3. Insofar as Vicki attempts to cast the absence of the insurance 

policy as a failure of Randall to disclose it, we note that Vicki had 

(continued...)
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20200935-CA 5 2022 UT App 65

acknowledged that it was “unclear whether these term life 

insurance policies were renewable by year, or after a number of 

years, or ended upon Randall’s death, or were terminated in the 

event of a divorce.” But the court also noted that Vicki “could 

have and should have” resolved the lack of production “through 

the appropriate pretrial procedure,” presumably a statement of 

discovery issues seeking to compel discovery. See Utah R. Civ. P. 

37(a)(1)(E). 

¶9 Given the court’s acknowledgment that it was unaware of 

the nature of the policy, it follows that it was equally unaware 

whether the policy was still in effect or if it had cash value. Indeed, 

Vicki took the position at trial that the insurance policy had no 

value: “[T]hese . . . term life insurance policies . . . don’t have 

value. It’s contingent upon an act.” And she explicitly stated that 

the policy had no “cash value” and was limited to “[j]ust the death 

benefit.” Randall also took the position that the policy had “no 

value.” Neither the district court’s findings of fact and conclusions 

of law nor the parties’ briefs on appeal point to any record basis 

on which to base a conclusion that the insurance policy retained 

the burden of producing evidence of the provisions of the policy 

in question. After Randall offered testimony of the policy’s cash 

value—testimony we note that Vicki appeared to agree with at 

trial when she characterized the policy as having no “value” apart 

from its value contingent on Randall’s death, see infra ¶ 9—Vicki 

had the burden of offering evidence of an alternative valuation. 

See Argyle v. Argyle, 688 P.2d 468, 470–71 (Utah 1984) (stating that 

if a party asserts that an asset should be valued by a different 

measure, then “the burden of offering further evidence on 

alternative methods of valuation” falls on that party); accord 

Beesley v. Beesley, 2003 UT App 202U, para. 2.
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20200935-CA 6 2022 UT App 65

any value. Instead, all the value related to the policy—as far as the 

record indicates—was consumed during the marriage.4

¶10 Accordingly, Vicki was not entitled to reimbursement for 

the premiums for the simple reason that either she or the marital 

estate received the value—in the form of mitigating the risk in the 

event of Randall’s death—of the premiums she paid. Short of 

collecting on a claim, mitigation of risk is generally the very 

nature of the benefit one receives from insurance. Vicki may 

indeed be entitled to reimbursement if the premiums had 

enhanced the value of Randall’s estate to her exclusion. But on the 

record before us, the payment of the insurance premiums did not 

enrich Randall such that he continued to enjoy—to the exclusion 

of Vicki—the benefit of the premiums after the divorce. Or put 

another way, there is no record evidence that Randall “is retaining 

some sort of good purchased with the money” spent on the life 

insurance premiums. See In re Marriage of Fluent, No. 16-1321, 2017 

4. In a term life insurance policy, 

[e]ach premium payment gives rise to an 

enforceable contractual right of coverage for an 

additional period of time. As premiums are paid 

over the life of the policy, distinct property interests 

in coverage for various periods of time arise. Of 

those distinct property interests, only one is worth 

anything in hindsight: coverage for the term during 

which the insured dies.

In re Marriage of Burwell, 164 Cal. Rptr. 3d 702, 713 (Cal. Ct. App. 

2013). “Prior terms of coverage only lack value in hindsight (i.e., 

when it is certain the contingency has failed). Prospectively, all 

coverage terms have at least expected value.” Id. at 713 n.12. Thus, 

here the policy had no value in the sense that the premium

coverage periods had expired without the contingency occurring, 

and these are the very terms for which Vicki received 

reimbursement.
Beckham v. Beckham

20200935-CA 7 2022 UT App 65

WL 2461601, at *3 (Iowa Ct. App. June 7, 2017).5 Rather, the only 

conclusion that the sparse evidence could sustain is that the 

“benefit” of the insurance premiums was received by Vicki 

during the corresponding terms of life insurance coverage. And 

this benefit consisted of protection from the risk associated with 

Randall’s potential death during each of the paid terms of the 

policy—a benefit that was consumed in each term. But after each

paid term lapsed, Randall did not retain some benefit from the 

premiums—or at least there is no record evidence of a retained 

benefit. Thus, the premiums were not reimbursable to Vicki 

because she—or the marital estate—had already received the 

value of those premiums in the coverage the insurance policy 

provided on Randall’s life during the marriage.

¶11 Expressed differently, the premiums were a paid-for 

resource that had been consumed—like many household 

expenditures—during the marriage. And like the money paid for 

any other proper living expense incurred during a marriage, the 

money paid for the insurance premiums was not reimbursable 

upon divorce because the value of the expense associated with 

that item—in this case, assurance against risk provided by 

insurance premiums—was used up during the marriage. See 

Heckler v. Heckler, No. FA040084101S, 2005 WL 529940, at *1–2 

(Conn. Super. Ct. Jan. 27, 2005) (denying, in a divorce proceeding, 

a husband’s request that his former wife reimburse him for 

5. It is unclear how the district court found that Randall benefited 

from the payment of premiums by allowing him to “perpetuate” 

the policy for “his newly named beneficiaries.” At best, this 

benefit identified by the court seems speculative because the court 

had explicitly stated that it did not have access to the policies and 

that it was “unclear whether these term life insurance policies 

were renewable by year, or after a number of years, or ended 

upon Randall’s death, or were terminated in the event of a 

divorce.”
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20200935-CA 8 2022 UT App 65

“certain living expenses he paid on the wife’s behalf during the 

marriage”); see also Czepiel v. Allen, No. FA 9886060, 1999 WL 

99097, at *1 (Conn. Super. Ct. Feb. 16, 1999) (“The court does not 

allow reimbursement for telephone bill expenses or other 

household expenses [that] were joint undertakings of their family

. . . .”). The insurance premiums Vicki paid—even if they did 

proceed from her own earnings—were akin to the living expenses 

that are “part and parcel” of the daily marital undertaking. See 

Czepiel, 1999 WL 99097, at *2. As such, they were not reimbursable 

to her upon divorce as she had already received the value she 

bargained for in voluntarily assuming the expense of the 

premiums. 

¶12 Thus, the expenditures for the insurance premiums fell 

into the category of normal living expenses voluntarily paid from 

marital assets, and they were not subject to reimbursement 

because they had been entirely exhausted and consumed in 

paying for a marital expense, namely, buying life insurance for 

Randall—from which Vicki would have benefited had Randall 

died during the term of the policy. See Mortensen v. Mortensen, 760 

P.2d 304, 308 (Utah 1988) (“[I]n Utah, trial courts making 

‘equitable’ property division pursuant to section 30-3-5 should . . . 

generally award property acquired by one spouse by gift and 

inheritance during the marriage (or property acquired in 

exchange thereof) to that spouse, together with any appreciation 

or enhancement of its value, unless . . . the property has been 

consumed . . . .” (emphasis added)); see also In re Marriage of Rolfe, 

699 P.2d 79, 84 (Mont. 1985) (noting that the district court “erred 

in returning the value of” certain prenuptial property that had

“long since been consumed” during the course of a fifteen-year 

marriage); In re Marriage of Fluent, 2017 WL 2461601, at *3

(determining that it was “inequitable” to require a wife to 

reimburse her former husband $74,000 of his own funds that he 

had voluntarily used during the marriage “to maintain the 

parties’ basic standard of living” and “for the benefit of both 
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20200935-CA 9 2022 UT App 65

himself and his family, without providing any accounting for 

these expenditures or identifying any asset (beyond the marital 

home) into which the monies were allegedly spent” (cleaned up)).

¶13 Accordingly, the district court exceeded its discretion in 

ordering reimbursement where there was no evidence that 

Randall continued to benefit after the divorce from the previous 

payments of the premiums.

CONCLUSION

¶14 Because Vicki had already received the benefit of the 

insurance premiums she paid, we conclude that the district court 

exceeded its discretion in ordering Randall to reimburse Vicki 

$40,000 for the premiums. 

¶15 Reversed and remanded.

6

6. The court ordered Randall to pay Vicki a cash payment of 

$68,750 plus any gains realized from non-retirement accounts and 

IRAs. This amount consisted of equalizing payments of $23,658.50 

for non-retirement assets, $2,913 for IRAs, $1,000 for gains on a 

non-retirement account, $1,250 for a half-interest in a burial plot, 

and $40,000 for the life insurance premium reimbursement. We 

note the sum of these values is $68,821.50, which is $71.50 more 

than the court’s addition yielded. On remand, the court should 

resolve this discrepancy.