Not a year goes by without events that change our lives. What’s important is to recognize which of those life events need to be paid attention to and then to take action to protect our interests. In upcoming articles, I’ll focus on four events that have an impact on your federal employee benefits—and that require you to make certain decisions in a timely manner: marriage, the birth of a child, divorce, or death. To begin, I’ll focus on marriage.
Survivor annuity
If you are an employee, you are required by law to provide a survivor annuity for your spouse. If you are retired and get married, the decision about providing a survivor annuity is entirely up to you. There is no requirement that you do so. The form needed to designate a beneficiary is the same for employees and retirees: Standard Form 2808 (CSRS) or 3102 (FERS). These forms are available online at www.opm.gov/forms/pdf_fill/sf2808.pdf or www.opm.gov/forms/pdf_fill/sf3102.pdf .
Health insurance
If you are an employee who is already enrolled in the Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) program and get married, you can change your coverage. For example, if you are single, you can change from Self Only to Self Plus One. If you were enrolled in Self Plus One to cover a single dependent child, you can change to Self and Family. However, if you were already enrolled in Self and Family to cover more than one eligible children, all you have to do is add your new spouse.
On the other hand, if you are an employee who wasn’t enrolled in the FEHB program and get married, you can do that now. Enrollment changes must be made from 31 days before your marriage to 60 days after it. You can download the form need to do that at www.opm.gov/forms/pdf_fill/sf2809.pdf. When you fill out that form, you’ll also be able to change your enrollment from one health benefits plan or option to another.
Note: Unfortunately, if you weren’t enrolled in the FEHB program when you retired, you can’t enroll in it now, even if there is a change in your marital status.
Life insurance
If you are enrolled in the Federal Employees’ Group Life Insurance program (FEGLI) and filled out a designation of beneficiary form when you were first hired, you may want to change that designation if you get married. That decision is entirely up to you. Whether you are an employee or a retiree, if you want to make that change you can do so by filling out a Standard Form 2823, which you can download at www.opm.gov/forms/pdf_fill/sf2823.pdf.
Former head of retirement and insurance policy at the Office of Personnel Management, and longtime FEDweek contributor, Reg Jones is known throughout the federal workforce community as an authority on pay and benefits.
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