MS CHRISTINA Hanson was just one formality away from being officially divorced when her husband was killed in a car crash in 2004.
Last week, she was awarded $453,000 after a court battle with her husband's car insurers. But had Ms Hanson's divorce gone through, she would have got nothing from the insurers under Singapore law - a cruel irony that should be changed, said the High Court judge hearing the case.

'This gives rise to an inequitable state of affairs,' said Justice Judith Prakash. 'Whether a wife or former wife is entitled to maintain a dependency claim cannot hinge on a matter as fortuitous as the date and time of her husband's death.'

A couple's marital status shouldn't be the deciding factor in accident death awards, she said. Rather, the issue to consider is how much money a husband would have paid his ex-wife in support after their split.

Mr Eu's family was awarded $1.9 million in June this year, of which $211,000 went to his wife.

But the car insurers and Mr Eu's family appealed. Last week, Justice Prakash lowered the family's award to $1.69 million, but more than doubled that of Ms Hanson's to $463,000.

The law currently 'precludes a claim by former wives who may have a maintenance order against their former husbands and are in the natural sense of the word still dependent', said Justice Prakash.

' There is no rational basis to exclude their claim,' she added.

She noted the UK Parliament changed laws there in 1976 to allow former spouses to make dependency claims in accident cases. A similar move here 'would solve the predicament of ex-wives in Singapore', said Justice Prakash. The changes would not open the floodgates to claims 'because the courts will still have to assess the extent of the dependency', she said.

Lawyers contacted described the suggestion as timely. Ms Belinda Ang, a family lawyer with 30 years' experience, said a spouse with a monthly maintenance claim against her husband cannot be expected to collect from a dead man. '(But) if she was given a lump sum for maintenance as part of the settlement, she could circumvent the problem by making a claim against the dead man's estate,' she said.

In a statement yesterday through her lawyers from Rodyk & Davidson, Ms Hanson said she and her two sons were still deeply saddened by Mr Eu's death. Insurance companies, she said, have the duty to help families after deadly accidents. 'It is the responsibility of an insurance company to honour the terms of its policies in order to ease the suffering of innocent victims of a tragic circumstance such as a fatal car crash,' she said.

vijayan@sph.com.sg