Life and Death Planning

As the waters begin to recede from the city of New Orleans, the death toll likely will begin to rise. Those deaths will serve as a grim reminder to those who escaped Hurricane Katrina of the kind of preparations to make to prepare for a federal employee's death.

"Most of my students, they don't want to talk about death," said Georgia Bohuslav, a federal employee retirement counselor and contractor with FPMI Solutions Inc. "I just force it on them. They have to know this up front: You are going to die."

One of the first things an employee should do is inform his or her spouse and children of the steps to take in reporting the death of a federal employee, so that they can claim the appropriate benefits. These steps differ if the federal worker is an employee or is retired at the time of death.

To report the death of a current employee, family members should contact the personnel office of the agency where the federal worker worked, so make sure your family has that contact information. Personnel officials will need to fill out required forms.

A family member should then complete the appropriate applications for death benefits, which differ if the deceased was under the older Civil Service Retirement Service system or the newer Federal Employee Retirement Service. Employees should make sure that relatives have critical information: social security number, retirement claim number (if the employee has one), date of birth and the dates of any previous marriages. Also, federal employees should make sure family members have copies of documents such as former marriage certificates, divorce decrees or death certificates of a former spouse.

To report a death, survivors should attach any requested documents to the completed forms as well as a copy of the federal worker's marriage certificate, and mail it to:

Office of Personnel Management
Retirement Operations Center
ATTENTION: Employee Death
Post Office Box 45
Boyers, PA 16017-0045

A widow or widower claiming benefits for himself or herself and on behalf of children should file only one application.

In the case of a worker who is retired at the time of death, the forms are slightly different. FERS retirees should use this form and CSRS employees should fill out this form.

Beyond getting the proper documents ready, federal employees also should line up their benefits for survivors.

One important area to pay attention to is health care. If an employee's family uses the health benefits provided by the government, they may not be able to after the employee dies. If at least one family member will receive a monthly survivor benefit, their enrollment in the health insurance program automatically will continue after the employee's death and the cost will be withheld from the monthly survivor payment. If the employee dies, however, and none of their family members receives a monthly survivor benefit, the health insurance ends with the employee's death.

Spousal survivor benefits are not automatic; employees must elect them. If employees do not elect to pay for a survivor benefit, their spouse will not receive a payment when the employee dies.

"When you die, your money dies with you," said Bohuslav. "There is no more money going to your bank account, so what is your spouse going to live on?"

To elect a survivor benefit, employees should send a copy of their marriage certificate within two years of their marriage to the retirement operations center address listed above, indicating that they would like to elect for survivor benefit. Center officials will then send the appropriate forms to complete.

Something else to think about: life insurance. All eligible employees are automatically covered by basic life insurance, which amounts to their annual rate of basic pay rounded up to an even $1,000 plus an additional $2,000. Employees may, however, want to consider additional life insurance offered by the government, for greater coverage. OPM has information about these options on its Web site.