Question about early retirement payment (Federal Government)

[Travis]

My father was forced into early retirement by the federal government and received a 25,000 bonus and nearly 1400 a month till he dies.


A month ago, he was diagnosed with Stage 4 Lung Cancer and while we are praying and expecting chemo to work and have him be here for awhile we also want to be sure my mother will be fine.

Will my mother be able to receive any of his retirement that he got when he was forced into early retirement?

Thank you.

 

[sweetana3]

It depends on what he signed up for at the end. If he declined spousal support, she would have to have signed away her rights. My husband had to do that when I retired. There were a number of choices that could have been made at the time of retirement.
Below are two websites with more info but specifics depend on your Dad's final decisions:
www.opm.gov Handles retirements and annuitants for Federal Government.
Deceased Annuitant Benefits Page dealing with survivor (mother) of deceased annuitant (father).

 

[Travis]

Is there any way to reverse it if they had no added my mother at the time?

 

[Travis]

Actually, theres no official way that I just found out she could be added but rather to write in a letter than they were misinformed at the time.

Now my question is, if they were to add my mother this time around would they require a fee or something?

 

[73ss454]

Travis, I think once those choices are made they are written in stone.

 

[Tesaje]

If she signed away the survivor benefit there is no way to reverse that. The default is for the spouse to get about 55% of the annuity. I hope she didn't refuse the survivor. She owned that benefit, not your father. But once it is done, there is no reversing it.

Your father got a personalized benefit book when he retired that would have all these specifics. If you can get the access for his account, you can find out what it is on the opm.gov web site. You should get the log on info in any case. The opm web site has a list of all the steps you need to take when your father dies.

 

[donheff]

If I remember correctly the annuity statements from OPM also specify whether a spousal deduction is taken from the annuity payments. The only scenario I have heard for retroactively instating a survivor benefit is when the original declination was phony. In that case, the survivor annuity would be reduced to recoup the extra payment that was made to the original annuitant.