Help for Your Survivors

(This article appeared in the July/August 2004 issue of The American Postal Worker magazine)

John R. Smith, Director

This column regularly covers topics important to current and future retirees and their families. Usually the topics are related to retirement itself, but this article is intended to help your “survivors” smoothly handle your affairs when you no longer are around.

Many phone calls to the APWU Retirees Department are from people lacking basic information about recently deceased family members. Will your survivors know all about your life and health insurance benefits? Could they easily find the records of your checking and savings accounts, bonds, stocks, and cars? Will they understand your pension and annuity survivor benefits?

I suggest that you write down as much basic information as you can, and share it in a concise form with your family or a friend (or whoever has been selected to be the executor of your will). Let them know where you keep your will, and keep all the other information with it.

While Employed

When an active employee with at least 18 months of creditable civil service dies, surviving spouses and children qualify for a monthly survivor annuity as long as the employee was subject to the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) or Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS).

The surviving spouse is eligible for the annuity if you were married for at least nine months at the time of your death, or if the spouse is the surviving parent of a child born of the marriage. The nine-month requirement does not apply in cases of accidental death.

Children are eligible for the annuity if they are unmarried and under the age of 18, full-time students in recognized educational institutions and under age 22, or incapable of self support at the time of their parent’s death and over age 18 (provided the disability occurred prior to age 18).

An APWU member’s employing office is available for immediate assistance to survivors in the filing of the appropriate forms to receive benefits.

The following are required: two certified copies of the death certificate; a copy of military discharge certificates, including a report of transfer or discharge; a copy of the marriage certificate; and copies of birth certificates of dependent children until age 22. Once the applicable copies are received, the employing office will provide the claim forms.

During Retirement

If death occurs during retirement, the surviving spouse or parent of your child qualifies for an annuity if the retired postal worker had accepted a reduced annuity with survivor benefits at retirement and the marriage was at least nine months in duration at the time. Survivor annuity payments to spouses continue for life unless a spouse remarries before age 55.

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) must honor qualifying court orders that provide survivor annuity benefits for former spouses. If an ex is entitled to a full survivor annuity, the current spouse will receive monthly survivor benefits only if the former spouse loses entitlement to the court-ordered benefits.

Children (as defined above) automatically qualify for a survivor annuity regardless of the employee’s annuity election.

Lump-Sum Summation

Lump-sum benefits consist of the total amount credited to a retirement fund, plus accrued interest. Lump-sum benefits will be paid to a current spouse, former spouse, or children eligible for a survivor annuity. If the survivor annuity terminates before retirement contributions are exhausted (paid out in the form of an annuity), the balance remaining in the account is payable in a lump sum.

Any unpaid accrued annuity due to the employee is also payable in a lump sum. The payment is made in this priority: designated beneficiary, spouse, child (or children in equal shares), parents, executor or estate administrator, next of kin.

Survivors should notify the Office of Personnel Management. While the employing office can provide contact information, the main OPM address should be in your records: OPM Employee Service and Records Center, PO Box 45, Boyers, PA 16017-0045.