BROWN, J.
Anne Bingley appeals the trial court’s order as to division of assets in the dissolution of her marriage to Charles Bingley. Anne raises a single issue, which we revise and restate as whether the trial court erred in concluding that Charles’s employer-paid post-retirement health insurance premiums were not a marital asset subject to division. We affirm.
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The trial court determined that Charles’s employer-paid health insurance premiums were not a marital asset subject to division. We agree. The cases cited by Anne are all similar in that they involve monthly monetary payments made directly to the pension-holding spouse. Here, Charles’s benefit was not payable to him. Further, Charles could not elect to have his stipend increased in lieu of the premium payments; rather, the benefit was non-elective and not subject to divestiture, division or transfer.
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. . . [I]nsurance policy coverage as a part of an employee’s retirement package may be included in the marital estate only when marital assets were used to obtain the benefits. Benefits which are purely supplemental, i.e., not purchased/obtained using marital assets, non-elective and not subject to divestiture, division, or transfer are properly excluded from the marital estate.
We note finally that in its order the trial court relied upon Metro. Life Ins. Co. v. Tallent in deciding that the health care premium payments were not a marital asset. The trial court found that Charles’s “health insurance benefit (payment of premiums) is similar in nature to a term life insurance policy provided by an employer with no cash surrender value. Such a benefit is not marital property.” Appellant’s Appendix at 25 (citing Tallent, 445 N.E.2d at 990) (emphasis added).
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. . . However, nowhere does our current statutory framework require pension or retirement assets to have a cash surrender value in order to be counted as a marital asset. We find that the holding of Tallent was based on a now-superseded definition of “property.” In the instant case, we are concerned with subsection (b)(2) of the current property definition which does not require the asset to possess a cash surrender value in order for it to be included in the marital pot. We therefore do not find Tallent instructive. See Schueneman v. Schueneman, 591 N.E.2d 603, 607-608 (Ind. Ct. App. 1992) (holding that, after the 1985 amendments, the scope of pensions considered marital assets was expanded beyond those which “have a present right to receive any money from it”).
For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the trial court’s determination that Charles’s employer-paid health insurance premiums were not a marital asset subject to division.
Affirmed.
MAY, J., concurs.
CRONE, J., concurs in result with separate opinion.
CRONE, Judge, concurring in result.
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. . . [T]he legislature’s overarching intent [was] that only durable and definable “benefits” be considered marital property subject to division. The health insurance premiums paid by Navistar are a purely contractual right and are contingent upon both Navistar’s and Charles’s viability.7 As such, the premiums are more akin to future income, and I think that they would be more appropriately treated by the trial court in the same manner as future earnings ability. It is well settled that “a trial court may not divide the future earnings of a party in anticipation that they will be earned.” Shannon v. Shannon, 847 N.E.2d 203, 205 (Ind. Ct. App. 2006), trans. denied (2007). Based on the foregoing, I concur in result with the majority’s affirmance of the trial court’s dissolution order.