Frequently Asked Questions Benefits for LGBT Federal Employees and Annuitants

Please contact Long Term Care Partners at 1-800-582-3337. Federal Long-Term Care Insurance Program (FLTCIP) long term care premiums are based on age, not gender.

Provide a copy of your marriage license to your HR Office if you haven’t done so already. You may request that your agency remove the domestic partner form from your personnel file so as to avoid any possible confusion.

For Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB), you may want to enroll in a Fee-For-Service plan that provides coverage nationwide and internationally.

The Federal Employee Dental and Vision Insurance Program (FEDVIP) offers six nationwide dental plans and four nationwide vision plans.  Employees with covered family members in other states often choose a nationwide plan because in-network providers can be close by even though the family member is far away.

Yes. In 1997, President Clinton established the 24-hour LWOP policy to encourage Federal agencies to make 24 hours of unpaid leave available to Federal employees for these three family support purposes as an interim measure while pursuing legislation to amend the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). Although FMLA was never amended for these purposes, President Obama continues to support this LWOP policy with a current emphasis to extend coverage to Federal employees with same-sex domestic partners. Pursuant to the President’s June 2, 2010, Memorandum, OPM has extended the 24-hour LWOP policy to apply also to the children and elderly relatives of employees’ same-sex domestic partners. See CPM 2010-16, Extension of 24-Hour LWOP Family Support Policy to Same-Sex Domestic Partners of Federal Employees, September 10, 2010 http://www.chcoc.gov/Transmittals/TransmittalDetails.aspx?TransmittalID=3146. See also Frequently Asked Questions about Leave: 24-Hours of LWOP for Family Support (http://www.opm.gov/oca/leave/html/24HoursLWOPQA.asp).  

Yes. If you are a retiree under the Civil Service Retirement System or the Federal Employee Retirement System, contact OPM to make changes to your retirement based on your marriage.

Generally, if you are married at the time of retirement, you are required to provide full survivor annuity benefits for your spouse unless your spouse consents to a lesser amount or no survivor benefits.

If no survivor benefit is payable, OPM will pay a lump-sum death benefit under the statutory order of precedence. Under the order of precedence, OPM must pay the lump-sum to any beneficiary the employee/retiree has designated as the recipient of that benefit. If the employee/retiree did not designate a beneficiary, then the next person entitled under the order of precedence is the surviving spouse.

As for Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) benefits, the experts at the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board provided this answer: “A participant can designate any individual, organization, a trust or will as a beneficiary without spousal consent. However the spouse must consent to withdrawal that it is in any form other than a joint life survivor annuity with the spouse as the joint annuitant.”

If a Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) employee dies, recurring monthly payments may be made to the surviving spouse if the employee completed at least 18 months of creditable service and was covered under CSRS at the time of death.

- To qualify for the monthly benefit, the surviving spouse must have been married to the employee for at least nine months prior to death.

- If the death occurred before nine months, a survivor annuity may still be payable if the employee’s death was accidental or there was a child born of the marriage.

If a Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) employee dies with at least 18 months of creditable civilian service under FERS, the Basic Employee Death Benefit may be available for the surviving spouse.  Additionally, if a FERS employee dies, recurring monthly payments may be made to the surviving spouse if the deceased employee completed at least 10 years of creditable service (18 months of which must be civilian service). The same nine-month marriage requirement exists for establishing entitlement to the FERS Basic Employee Death Benefit and the  FERS spousal survivor annuity , and the same exceptions to the 9-month marriage requirement apply (i.e., the 9-month marriage requirement will not apply if the employee’s death was accidental or there was a child born of the marriage).

You can go to the Life Event webpage for Death/Survivors to learn more.

If a retiree is married at retirement, an election for a survivor annuity benefit must be made at retirement, or if an annuitant wants to increase the amount of a survivor annuity provided to a spouse at retirement, the annuitant must elect that increase within 18 months of the retirement.

If the retiree is not married at retirement but then gets married after retirement, the election needs to be made within the 2-year period following the marriage.  If a person elects a survivor annuity for a spouse acquired after marriage, OPM must reduce the annuitant’s annuity by the cost of the survivor annuity benefit. Additionally, OPM must collect a deposit (through an actuarial reduction to the annuitant’s annuity) representing the amount the annuitant would have received had the survivor election been in place from the annuity commencing date to the effective date of the election, plus interest.

You can find more information about electing survivor annuity benefits after retirement by going to the Life Events webpage on Marriage/Divorce. You can also call contact OPM Retirement Services to talk about the specifics of your case.