The Federal Employees’ Group Life Insurance plan (FEGLI) is the largest group life insurance plan in the world. It covers both current and retired federal employees and their families.

The Basic Insurance Amount is the employee’s base salary rounded up to the nearest thousand with an additional $2,000 added on. If an employee is under 35 years old, coverage is automatically doubled at no added cost. At age 36, and every year thereafter to the age of 46, coverage is reduced by 10%. At age 46, the coverage is back to the Basic Insurance Amount.

FEGLI provides three optional coverages:

• Option A (Standard) allows an employee to add an additional $10,000 to their coverage.

• Option B (Additional) allows an employee to increase their coverage up to five times their base pay.

• Option C (Family) provides coverage for an employee’s spouse of $5,000 and each child $2,500. This option can be multiplied up to five times.

Both the employee and the government pay into FEGLI. The employee pays 2/3 of the premiums and the government pays the remaining 1/3.

As an employee’s base pay increases, their coverage amount increases as well as their monthly payment into FEGLI. The FEGLI premium automatically increases at ages 45, 50, 55, 60, and when the employee retires. At retirement, employees can keep their existing coverage, reduce their coverage, or cancel it entirely. Maintaining full coverage under all of the options will involve substantial cost for retirees.

FEGLI is an open enrollment benefit plan and accepts all federal employees, covering them with life insurance. Most new federal employees are automatically enrolled in FEGLI unless they elect to waive coverage.

The optional coverage plans are also available on a guaranteed basis; no medical exams are required for anyone participating.

Because FEGLI is a group program that must accept all employees regardless of any pre-existing medical conditions many non-smoking, healthy employees often find FEGLI has higher premiums than what may be offered by fully-underwritten commercial term life insurance plans.

Our Federal Employee Benefit Counselors will work with you to determine your life insurance needs and the appropriate amount and type of insurance to choose. Our trained counselors provide objective advice about which plans are best suited to meet your requirements and how to combine FEGLI coverage with other federal retirement benefit programs to maximize retirement income.

We will also provide you with a detailed cost analysis of the options associated with each plan and help with implementation of your selection.