Re: Question

Well, if you are talking about your 401(k), that would go to the beneficiaries you have designated. If you are talking about your pension, Uncle Sam gets to keep that, just as he does your social security benefits if you are not married and don't have minor children.

Re: If you die while working

You should designate a beneficiary for your retirement funds; if you fail to do so, it will be paid in the order of precedence, i.e. surviving children, parents, siblings, etc. You should also designate a beneficiary for unpaid compensation (final salary and lump sum leave), life insurance and TSP if you want these funds to go to a particular person.

Re: Survivor Benefits Annunity

if you don't have a court order to provide benefits to your former spouse, you may elect a survivor annuity for a former spouse. see application for immediate retirement.

Re: the article

You can designate persons of your choice to be the beneficiary of your life insurance, tsp, and any retirement benefits not paid out to you after retirement. There are no provisions under federal retirement for a domestic partner. You may elect an insurable iterest to provide a survivor annuity for your partner.

Re: Life partner

If the life partner is set as the beneficiary, yes. However, they would have to pay income tax on everything, unlike a legal widow or widower.

Re: What about me?

there are lots of unmarried people living together that are in the same boat

Re: What about me?

Yes, there are a lot of unmarried straight couples who are in that boat by choice. They CAN get married. We can not.

Re: What about me?

GS - DOL, well the other side of that coin is that if the relationship goes south, "life partners" can just walk away w/o any obligation to pay alimony or child support, no division of a 401k or other assets, and no enormous bill from a divorce attorney.

Re: What about me?

worker bee: i really don't think that the "benefit" you mention outweighs the right to marriage.

I do not live in an alimony state; if one partner is the birth mother, the other adopts so that both are legal parents and liable for child support; because things such as real property, bank accounts, automobiles, mutual fund accounts, etc. are usually jointly owned, a split-up can involve lawyers -- but possibly be less costly because of less drama and hostility.

Re: TSP Benefits

I think the only one entitled to an inherited 401k is a spouse or former spouse. My brother passed away recently, was unmarried, and we got all kinds of bad advice about his Roth and IRAs. Bottom line: as a non-spousal beneficiary, I cannot set up an inherited IRA but must begin to take distributions before the end of the year after his death (12/31/2009, in thic case) and must take all distributions within either 5 years or based on the life expectancy of the oldest beneficiary (I guess if that would be less than 5 years).

Re: Single Mom

Your dependent child is entitled to a child's benefits under FERS. However, the child is also entitled to a Social Security(SS) benefit. If the monthly Social Security benefits exceeds the FERS benefit, no FERS is payable. At age 18 when the SS benefits terminates if he is a full time student, the FERS benefit will be payable between the ages 18-22. The child is entitled to health benefits if you had a family plan. If you don't have any survivors or no designation of beneficiary on file, your monies will be paid out under the order of precedence

Re: Life Insurance Policy

Why would you care if it is put into a money market account or paid directly by check? Can't you just write yourself a check for the full amount, thereby closing the money market account?

This might have been set up, like direct deposit of our paychecks, to reduce the possibilities of theft from the mail or to prove the insurance proceeds were, in fact, paid to the beneficiaries.

Re: Life Insurance

I think this is a self-answering question. The proceeds go into a money market account and your beneficiaries get a checkbook. They can write themselves a check and close out the account. Provides a paper trail for the govt that the proceeds went to the real beneficiaries. Similar to the requirement for direct deposit paychecks and social security benefits.

Actually, this makes a lot more sense than having the insurance company ask you to send back the original life insurance policy ('cuz everyone's filing system is complete, organized, and easy for their beneficiaries to understand). It's the same premise - the insurance company needs a paper trail to be able to prove the proceeds were paid out if someone comes along 20 years later with a policy in hand (found while cleaning out grandpa's attic), asking for payment because they don't know if a claim was made way-back-when or not.

Re: I'm amazed - but not really surprised

Remember the good old days when you could get timely benefit information on a regular basis? Nowadays you have HR personnel behind closed doors where you have to schedule an appointment to see them; there's a central benefits center in Kansas where I recently got some wrong information; and if the OPM website was really user-friendly, it would have clear cut links that cover scenarios listed in this article. As a matter of fact, OPM could have had a link with the same name as this article, "What Happens to....." Maybe FEDSMITH writers can come to my organization and keep us up-to-date with regular in-person benefit briefings? Annually - even semi-annually would be better than nothing.

Re: I'm amazed - but not really surprised

To Office Automation - DoD;

Actually, I believe that the plan should be changed to fit your complaint and accomodate you. It would work this way:

When YOU are sitting in YOUR HR office getting information on YOUR retirement and benefits for YOU and YOUR family, and another employee comes to the door seeking information on HIS retirement benefits for HIM and HIS family (or HER), then - based on YOUR complaint above - the HR professional would drop YOUR material over to the side, asking YOU to leave so he could speak with the other employee about HIS and HIS families benefits.

Hey, works great, no appointment required and they can save money as well by doing away with appointment books, etc.

Good idea.

Re: I'm amazed - but not really surprised

Workforce - I agree with you. I've worked for IRS for over 5 years but I have absolutely no idea where any personnel people are physically located within 100 miles of me. In IRS anyway, it is a self service HR. Maybe I just haven't had any issues or reasons to find out where the living, breathing HR bodies are, but I wouldn't begin to know where to start if I needed to call someone or, heaven forbid, sit down with someone.

And Watcher - your attitude that HR people are bothered by employees asking questions is difficult to swallow. HR is only necessary BECAUSE there are people that work for the agency. If you'd prefer to sit in your office undisturbed all day, I apologize, but remember that you HAVE a job because the employees at your agency need you.

Re: CSRS Survivor benefit

OPM website has a lot of information. check out the publications. Surviving spouse of a current employee is addressed in retirement facts 5

http://opm.gov/retire/pubs/pamphlets/index.asp