Military Survival Benefits
If you happen to be a veteran of the military, you can acquire an insurance called the Survivor Benefit Plan that enables your surviving spouse to acquire your retirement benefits after you die. However, unless you make it clear in the insurance you want to give your military benefits only to a spouse or to specific children, your survivor benefits will automatically go to your spouse and children after your death.
Other People Are Reading
-
Premiums
-
Military.com says that, as with all insurance, you have to pay a monthly premium to acquire the Survivor Benefit Plan. How that's determined will be based on what benefit level you want in the plan, otherwise known as the base amount. If you so choose, you can go down to as low as $300 a month. Full coverage will be based on the full amount you currently make in military retirement benefits. Regardless if you elect full coverage or less, your surviving spouse would get 55 percent of whatever your base amount is.
Paid-Up Survivor Benefits
-
As of 2008, anybody older than 70 and has paid into the Survivor Benefit Plan for 30 years won't have to pay premiums any longer, says Military.com. Called "Paid-Up Survivor Benefit Plan," this provision was made possible through the federal National Defense Authorization Act in 1999.
-
Choice of Beneficiaries
-
When you set up a Survivor Benefit Plan, you have a choice of different beneficiary plans. A plan that gives benefits to your spouse and child can benefit the child exponentially if your spouse remarries before age 55 -- creating benefit ineligibility to the spouse -- or your spouse dies long before your child does. You can also have a plan for just a child. Or, you can choose to give benefits to your former spouse if that former spouse was married to you for at least a year before getting the Survivor Benefit Plan. If you have no spouse or child, you can also choose a person of insurable interest not related to you.
Cost-of-Living Adjustments
-
Just like Social Security, your Survivor Benefit Plan will be adjusted by inflation with an annual cost-of-living adjustment. But while this helps your military benefits and increases what a spouse could someday get, it also makes your premiums on the insurance rise. Military.com says that the adjustments are taken from the Consumer Price Index and generally will be about 2.5 percent.
-
References
- Photo Credit young soldier in field cap image by Alexey Klementiev from Fotolia.com
