what benefits are available to spouses of retired military

2012 Benefits Handbook

• Pay and Benefits
  • Pay and Allowances
  • Other Allowances
  • Other Pay
  • Other Benefits
  • Withholdings and Taxes
• Support Services
  • Armed services Services
  • Individual Services
• Teaching
  • Dependents
  • Armed services - Personal
  • War machine - Professional person
• Wellness Care
  • Tricare Options
  • Tricare - Other
  • Tricare Glossary
  • Other Medical
• Housing
  • Allowances
  • Base of operations Housing
  • Off-Base Housing
• Recreation
  • Facilities
  • Travel Perks
• Moving
  • Transportation
  • Household Goods
  • Family Members
  • Relocation
  • Allowances
  • Asistance
• Retirement
  • Basic Plans
  • Other Benefits

Retirement

OTHER BENEFITS

ALLOTMENTS

Armed forces retirees accept several options for automatic paycheck deductions. They can establish discretionary allotments to pay insurance premiums, mortgages, rent or loans; support relatives; or deposit funds into financial or investment accounts.

Contact: The Defense Finance and Accounting Service'south Retired Pay Customer Service, 800-321-1080, 7 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Eastern fourth dimension, Monday through Friday.

Cost-OF-LIVING ADJUSTMENTS

Retired pay rises each year to ensure inflation does non erode retirees' purchasing power. These cost-of-living adjustments, or COLAs, are based on changes in the Labor Department's Consumer Price Index, a measure of the costs of common goods and services, over the terminal three months of the fiscal yr, July through September.

The annual retiree adjustment commonly is approved each Dec. 1, and first appears in January retired paychecks. It matches the annual increase in Social Security benefits.

Retirees got a jolt in late 2009 when it was announced that the economic recession had resulted in no inflation for the financial year — in fact, the nation experienced deflation. By police, military retired pay cannot decline, but for the first time in more than a generation, retirees saw no cost-of-living adjustment in 2010. Inflation remained so low that for 2011, retirees once more saw no increase in their annual COLA for an unprecedented second sequent year.

Later on that 2-twelvemonth hiatus, the COLA has returned, with all retires receiving a 3.6 percent increase in retired pay in 2012.

Retirees can rails the monthly inflation charge per unit that determines the almanac COLA through the Military Times' online "COLA Watch" chart. Become to www.militarytimes.com/money/ and click on "Tracking your COLA" under "Retirement."

DEATH BENEFITS

While VA does not provide military funeral honors, the Defense Section does. Yet, VA, the active-duty military and many veterans groups pool resources to provide fiscal assistance, applied assistance and military honors.

Veterans who served on agile duty, except those who received dishonorable discharges, are entitled to burial in a national cemetery, a government-provided headstone or mark, a flag and a Presidential Memorial Document. Flags can be obtained through any VA regional function and most post offices. All requests for benefits must be accompanied past proof of service in the class of a DD 214 discharge document.

Some programs designed to honour deceased military veterans:

Service-related expiry. VA will pay up to $2,000 toward burial expenses. If the veteran is cached in a VA national cemetery, some or all of the cost of transporting the deceased as well may be reimbursed.

Nonservice-related death. VA will pay up to $300 toward burying and funeral expenses, and a $300 plot-interment allowance.

Under a modify in law enacted in belatedly 2010, VA volition pay upwards to $700 toward burial and funeral expenses and a $700 plot internment allowance for deaths that occur in a VA facility or under VA-contracted intendance. However, Congress included a delayed effective engagement for this provision; it applies merely to qualifying deaths occurring on Oct. 1, 2011, or subsequently.

For deaths that occur in a VA hospital or under VA-contracted nursing dwelling care, some or all of the costs for transporting remains as well may be reimbursed.

The government provides free headstones and markers worldwide for veterans. Eligible family members (spouses and dependent children) buried in national, war machine base or land veterans cemeteries besides are entitled to costless headstones and markers.

Funeral honors. Honor guards are authorized for deceased retirees. Living retirees are eligible to serve on honor guards at the discretion of the military service secretarial assistant.

The Defense force Department must provide, on asking, at to the lowest degree ii uniformed personnel, a bugler or a recording of "Taps," and folding and presenting of a U.South. burial flag at every war machine funeral.

When possible, the uniformed contingent comes from the deceased'south service branch. Veterans organizations besides may provide accolade guards.

The funeral director ordinarily handles the details of getting an honor baby-sit. An adjutant general'southward function, duty officer or commander'south office at a local installation or reserve training middle also can provide this service.

Interment in Arlington National Cemetery. Interment is offered for service members in the following categories, as long equally their terminal catamenia of active duty ended honorably:

♦ Any active-duty member of the armed forces (except those serving on active duty for training only).

♦ Whatever veteran retired from active military service.

♦ Any veteran retired from the reserves who served a menses of active duty (other than for training) and is drawing retired pay, upon reaching historic period 60.

♦ Whatever one-time service fellow member separated honorably before October. 1, 1949, for medical reasons and who was rated xxx percent or greater disabled at time of discharge.

♦ Whatsoever one-time service member who has been awarded the Medal of Honor, Distinguished Service Cross (Navy Cross or Air Force Cross), Distinguished Service Medal, Silver Star or Majestic Centre.

♦ Any current or onetime U.S. president.

♦ Any former fellow member of the military who served on active duty (other than for preparation) and who held any of the following positions: an elective office of the U.S. government; justice of the U.S. Supreme Court; an function listed, at the time the person held the position, in 5 USC 5312 or 5313 (Levels I and II of the Executive Schedule); the primary of a mission who was, at whatever time during his tenure, considered to be in Class I under the provisions of Section 411, Act of xiii Baronial 1946, 60 Stat. 1002, equally amended (22 USC 866) or equally listed in a Country Department memorandum dated March 21, 1988.

♦ Any former prisoner of war who served honorably on active duty, whose last menstruum of service was honorable and who died on or after Nov. 30, 1993.

♦ Spouses, minor children, permanently dependent children and sure unmarried adult children of whatever of the above eligible veterans.

♦ The widow or widower of a service member who is lost or cached at ocean or officially determined to exist missing in activity, interred in a U.South. war machine cemetery overseas maintained by the American Battle Monuments Commission, or interred in Arlington National Cemetery equally part of a group burial.

♦ The surviving spouse, pocket-sized child or permanently dependent child of whatsoever person already cached in Arlington National Cemetery.

♦ The parents of a pocket-size child or permanently dependent child whose remains, based on the eligibility of a parent, already are buried in Arlington National Cemetery. (A spouse divorced from the eligible person, or widowed and remarried, is not eligible.)

♦ A erstwhile service member in the same grave with a shut relative who already is buried and is the primary eligible person, provided sure conditions are met.

Arlington columbarium. The Arlington columbarium is available for cremated remains of all honorably discharged veterans and their eligible spouses and dependent children. Eligibility requirements basically are the same as those for burials in other national cemeteries.

Other national cemeteries. War machine retirees, including retired reservists, and veterans who served on active duty and received discharges other than dishonorable are eligible for burial in whatever cemetery operated by the VA in the U.S. and Puerto Rico and the 14 cemeteries operated by the National Park Service.

At that place is no cost for a grave site, headstone or marker in these cemeteries. Grave sites cannot be reserved.

Contact: www.cem.va.gov or www.vba.va.gov/vba/benefits/factsheets/

EDUCATION

Post-9/11 GI Neb. This program, which launched Aug. 1, 2009, is i of the near sweeping war machine benefits upgrades in decades. Open to service members and veterans with active-duty service since Sept. 11, 2001, it covers full tuition and fees for upwardly to 36 months of schooling. The plan also provides a monthly living stipend, equal to the war machine housing allowance rate for an E-5 with dependents in the ZIP code where the schoolhouse is located, every bit well as an almanac book assart of $1,000.

To qualify for total benefits, service members must accept at least 3 years of active duty after Sept. xi, 2001. Lesser amounts of active duty rate a per centum of total benefits.

Montgomery GI Neb. This long-continuing program, which remained in result when the new Mail service-9/eleven GI Bill launched, has ii components for active-duty and Selected Reserve service members.

Those participating in the GI Bill-Active Duty agree to take nonrefundable contributions withheld from their paychecks at a charge per unit of $100 per month over their showtime 12 months of service. In add-on, to receive the benefits, veterans must have served the contracted number of years on active duty (at least two) and received an honorable discharge. Those eligible for the GI Beak-Agile Duty have ten years later on separating or retiring from service to employ their benefits.

The GI Bill-Selected Reserve requires no contribution, but reservists must be participating satisfactorily in the unit of measurement's monthly drills and be enrolled in at least half-time status in an eligible college, trade or technical school. Unlike the active-duty program, GI Neb-Selected Reserve benefits must exist used while the reservist is nonetheless in a drilling status; they cannot exist used after separation.

(See Post-9/xi GI Nib)

Contact: 888-GI-BILL-1, or 888-442-4551; www.gibill.va.gov

GARNISHMENT

A noncombatant courtroom can garnishee the income of retirees if they fall behind in alimony or child support. Garnishment begins with a courtroom order sent to a armed services finance center.

The finance center deducts the amount from a paycheck before information technology is written and sends the garnisheed amount to the court-identified person.

The Consumer Credit Protection Act limits the amount that can exist deducted equally kid back up/pension from earnings. The limit ranges from l pct of dispensable earnings to 65 percent.

Retirement pay is not subject to the Defense Department policy assuasive creditors to garnishee armed forces paychecks to satisfy bad debts.

HEALTH CARE

All retirees and their dependents retain eligibility to be treated in military machine hospitals and clinics when they plow 65. But care is provided on a space-available basis, and getting an engagement is increasingly difficult as installations close. Therefore, about retirees are seen at noncombatant facilities using Tricare, the military'southward managed-care insurance program.

Tricare for Life. Tricare offers retirees several insurance plans, depending on their historic period, with costs and options for provider intendance that vary widely.

Retirees 65 and older can see civilian doctors and have Tricare pay for part of the price under Tricare for Life. This is essentially a version of the basic Tricare Standard plan; these retirees cannot use Tricare Prime. Retirees must exist enrolled in Medicare Part B to use Tricare for Life, fifty-fifty though Medicare does not offering coverage outside the U.S. for retirees living away.

Retirees under age 65 tin cull to be covered under one of the other Tricare plans — Standard, Prime, Prime (Remote) or Extra. Even so, some aspects of how these programs piece of work alter when beneficiaries move from active-duty to retired status. For instance, Tricare Prime has no enrollment fee for active-duty beneficiaries, only it does have such a fee for retirees nether age 65 and their family unit members.

When a retiree receives care, the retiree first submits the cost of treatment to Medicare. What Medicare does non pay is sent to Tricare. When benefits are covered by Tricare but not Medicare, Tricare pays for the services. Overseas, Tricare is the primary payer. For claims to exist paid, retirees must keep their personal information current in the Defense Enrollment Eligibility Reporting Organization.

Tricare Retiree Dental Program. Armed services retirees and their families are eligible for the Tricare Retiree Dental Program, administered by Delta Dental of California. It provides dental coverage to enrollees in the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Canada, Guam, Puerto Rico, U.Due south. Virgin Islands, American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands.

Contact: www.trdp.org

Tricare Chemist's shop. Under the Tricare Chemist's shop plan, the cost of drugs for retirees depends on several factors. Drugs are cheaper if ordered past mail; for case, a 90-day supply of a generic drug ordered through the Tricare Post Order Pharmacy Program costs nothing, while the same drug purchased at ane of more than than 54,000 participating Tricare retail pharmacies is $five for a 30-twenty-four hours supply. Similarly, make-name drugs toll $9 for a 90-day supply through the mail or $12 for a 30-day supply at a network retail store.

Some brand-name drugs that are not a office of the Defense force Department formulary are placed on a third price tier, for which a 30-mean solar day supply from a retail outlet or a xc-day supply through the mail costs $25.

Military retirees and their family members who turned 65 on or after April 1, 2001, must take Medicare Role B to use Tricare's retail and postal service-order pharmacy programs. Military retirees and their family members who turned 65 before April i, 2001, are not required to carry Part B to utilize the pharmacy benefits.

In 2006, the new Medicare prescription drug coverage, known as Role D, became bachelor to anybody with Medicare Part A and/or Part B, except people living overseas or serving prison sentences. In nearly all cases, Tricare beneficiaries derive no advantage from purchasing Medicare Function D coverage. The exceptions may be for those with limited incomes and assets who qualify for Medicare'due south extra help with costs for prescription drug plans; such individuals may do good by enrolling in a Medicare prescription drug plan.

Contact: 877-363-1303; http://tricare.mil/mybenefit/domicile/Prescriptions

As role of its 2013 defense budget request, the Obama administration unveiled a proposal in early 2012 to brand several significant increases in Tricare fees for retirees — hikes in Tricare Prime enrollment fees for retirees nether historic period 65, a new Tricare for Life almanac enrollment fee for retirees 65 and older, and higher chemist's co-pays for both retirees and active-duty family members.

(See Health Intendance chapter.)

LIFE INSURANCE

Servicemembers' Group Life Insurance coverage is available in $50,000 increments up to a maximum of $400,000.

Veterans' Grouping Life Insurance extends renewable, v-year term insurance to members later on they leave active duty or the reserves. It's available in $10,000 increments up to $400,000, although maximum coverage is express to the maximum corporeality of SGLI held on agile duty or in the reserves.

Veterans who had SGLI in the military are eligible for VGLI for their lifetimes without bear witness of expert health if they apply within 120 days of leaving service. They can use for upwardly to another year, simply are then subject area to medical screening.

Monthly premiums can be deducted directly from retirement pay or VA disability compensation. They also may be paid quarterly, semiannually or annually, at progressively larger discounts.

Premiums increase every bit VGLI participants age. To hold downward costs, policyholders may convert VGLI to a permanent, whole-life insurance plan with stock-still premiums for life, or continue the premium at a fixed level but reduce their coverage as they become older.

Accelerated benefit. Terminally ill veterans with VGLI may be eligible to receive an accelerated do good. Under this plan, policyholders can receive up to half of their coverage corporeality tax free. To qualify, VGLI policyholders must produce a medico'south certification that they have 9 months or less to live.

Brotherhood Accounts. VGLI proceeds are distributed through the utilise of an interest-bearing account from which the casher can write a check for $250 or more. Alliance Accounts allow beneficiaries to begin earning a competitive interest charge per unit on their proceeds immediately upon payment, while providing instant access to their coin.

Contact: 800-419-1473; www.insurance.va.gov/sglisite/handbook/handbook.htm

MEDALS AND DECORATIONS

Retirees who have lost medals or decorations, or never received ones they earned, may asking them at whatsoever fourth dimension. The authorities will supplant lost or destroyed decorations for service or valor at no cost. There may be a charge for campaign ribbons and badges. Requests should include dates of military service, Social Security or serial number, and dates of birth and retirement.

Contact: National Personnel Records Center, Armed forces Personnel Records, 1 Athenaeum Drive, St. Louis, MO 63138; 314-801-0800; fax: 314-801-9195; email: MPR.heart@nara.gov

MOVING AND STORAGE

Service members who retire from the military machine can move anywhere in the continental U.S. at the government's expense; they do non accept to be going to their official home of record.

Certain restrictions utilise for retirees intending to live in Alaska and Hawaii. For those states, equally for other locations outside the continental U.S., the regime will pay moving expenses only if the location is listed every bit a retiree's official dwelling house of record or is where the retiree initially was called or ordered to active duty. Filing a final travel settlement voucher with a military finance part constitutes choice of a home.

Retirees do non receive advance pay and allowances, dislocation allowance, movement-in allowance or temporary lodging allowances. They can become mileage and per diem allowances for moving expenses.

Household appurtenances can be shipped from the retiree'south concluding duty station, any previous stateside duty station or storage surface area, or any combination of the 3. In well-nigh cases, retirees have a year from their retirement date to cease moving.

RETIREMENT HOMES

A number of retirement and long-term treatment facilities are available to veterans. Virtually veterans retirement homes are free to residents, although some enquire for payments.

Armed services Retirement Home. Facilities with a special human relationship to the military are the Military Retirement Homes in Washington, D.C., and Gulfport, Miss.

The Gulfport facility was forced to close in August 2005 after it was heavily damaged by Hurricane Katrina and its residents were evacuated to other facilities. The facility finally reopened to residents in October 2010.

The facility is located on 47 acres of prime waterfront country on the Mississippi Audio. It is a multitower complex with full amenities such as dining, social, recreational and therapeutic activities, swimming pool, hobby shops, health center with basic dental and eye care, bank, barber and beauty shop, bowling center, movie house, computer room, library, and pedestrian span to the beach.

The 2012 Defense Authorization Act contained a provision to abolish the traditional local advisory boards for each home and establish a unmarried informational board for both homes.

Contact: 800-422-9988; www.afrh.gov

VA domiciliaries. These facilities provide institutional care to veterans who are not acutely ill and do not need infirmary care. They also offer short-term rehabilitation and long-term health maintenance to veterans who require minimal medical care. Patients typically stay nigh vii months. VA operates more than three dozen domiciliaries beyond the land.

VA nursing homes. Veterans with service-connected disabilities rated 70 percentage or college, besides as veterans in need of nursing home intendance for a service-related status, are considered mandatory placements in VA nursing homes and are provided free care.

If space and resource are bachelor, other veterans may be eligible on a case-past-instance basis, with priority given to those with service-connected conditions and those who demand treat mail-astute rehabilitation, respite, hospice, geriatric evaluation and management, or spinal cord injury.

All other veterans who are discipline to co-payments also may exist considered for nursing home care, although placement options vary by location.

There is no co-payment for the commencement 21 days of nursing home care in any 12-calendar month menstruum. Charges outset on the 22nd day vary, depending on income, expenses, liquid avails and other factors.

VA's Community Living Centers Program, formerly known as the nursing home program, provides empathetic care to eligible veterans with functional impairment. Veterans with chronic, stable conditions such equally dementia, those requiring rehabilitation or short-term specialized services such as respite or intravenous therapy, or those who need comfort and care at the stop of life, are served in the centers. Most of these facilities are near VA medical centers. VA operates 130 centers in 47 states and Puerto Rico.

VA also has contracts to provide various other forms of care in hundreds of locations across the country, including habitation-based master care, purchased skilled habitation care, adult mean solar day health care, homemaker and home health aide services, home respite intendance and dwelling house hospice care.

Contact: www.va.gov/geriatrics

SPACE-AVAILABLE TRAVEL

Retirees and their families can get seats aboard regime aircraft under the military's space-available program, which offers empty seats to certain members of the armed forces community.

Retirees can use space-A to wing stateside, overseas or between the U.S. and overseas. Nominal fees are charged merely on some international flights using commercial aircraft or airports. There are restrictions.

Contact: www.amc.af.mil/shared/media/document/afd-060328-001.medico

SURVIVOR BENEFITS

To enable retirees to provide for their families after their deaths, the government offers an annuity program called the Survivor Benefit Plan.

SBP coverage too is given to all active-duty members at no price while they remain in uniform. Agile-duty and reserve retirees must pay monthly premiums. The SBP provides upward to 55 per centum of a member'southward monthly retired pay to his survivors.

To participate in the SBP or the Reserve Component SBP, or to decline participation, both the retiring service member and spouse must agree to the pick in writing.

Monthly premiums are deducted from retired pay. Retirees who elect SBP coverage when they exit active duty must remain covered for 2 years, later on which they have a one-fourth dimension, one-year window of opportunity to withdraw from the programme.

When retirees elect to participate in SBP, they select a dollar corporeality of their retirement pay, called the base of operations corporeality, as the foundation of the benefit. This must be betwixt $300 and the total amount of monthly retirement pay. The cost of SBP generally is 6.five percent of the amount of coverage a retiree selects. Surviving spouses so receive 55 percent of the base as their SBP payment.

Surviving spouses of retirees have SBP annuities suspended if they remarry before age 55. If the wedlock ends for any reason, the SBP will be reinstated when requested and when advisable documentation is provided. Nonetheless, the dependent ID bill of fare and its associated entitlements are not reinstated.

Cost-of-living adjustments. SBP premiums and annuities to survivors increase yearly, following the same guidelines used for retired pay COLAs.

DIC start. Survivors of service members who dice on active duty and survivors of retirees who die of service-connected causes are eligible for Dependency and Indemnity Bounty from the Veterans Diplomacy Department. However, if survivors also receive SBP payments, those payments are reduced dollar-for-dollar by the corporeality paid in DIC. A pro-rated share of SBP premiums is refunded to the surviving spouse in a lump sum, just with no involvement.

The 2008 Defense force Say-so Human action created a special payment to partially starting time the reduction in SBP benefits required for those who too receive DIC. The special payments began Oct. ane, 2008, the start of fiscal 2009. The monthly payment in fiscal 2009 was $50, and is rising by $10 each year to $100 per calendar month in financial 2013. It volition stay at $100 through February 2016, when the special payment is due to end.

Paid-Up SBP. Under a policy alter that took event Oct. one, 2008, SBP participants who take paid monthly premiums for 360 months — 30 years — and have reached age 70 are considered "paid up" in the program. The monthly deductions from their retirement checks end, and they practise not have to pay into the program whatsoever more for the rest of their lives. The Defense Finance and Accounting Service now includes a tally of the number of monthly payments credited toward paid-upwardly status on retiree pay statements.

Retirees with Reserve Component SBP are covered nether the program; nonetheless, credit for Paid-Upward SBP applies merely to months in which premiums are deducted from retired pay. Since reserve retirees practice non take premiums deducted until they are eligible to receive retired pay (usually age sixty), months in which they were in RC-SBP but paid no premiums do not count toward Paid-Upwards SBP.

Eligible retirees do not demand to do annihilation to terminate premiums. DFAS is supposed to notify them direct of their paid-upward status and when premium payments will cease.

Contact: More information on Paid-Upward SBP and the appeals process can be found at www.dfas.mil/retiredmilitary.html

Disability. Retirees who accept a service-connected inability rated by VA every bit totally disabling for ten or more than continuous years, or take a total inability rating that has been held for not less than 5 continuous years from the last engagement of active duty, may withdraw from SBP participation.

Withdrawal is allowed because the surviving spouse will authorize for Dependency and Indemnity Compensation, every bit the retiree's expiry volition be presumed to be from service-connected reasons.

A asking for withdrawal requires the written consent of the beneficiary. When the retiree dies, the surviving spouse will exist entitled to a refund of all the SBP costs that were paid. When a retiree requests withdrawal under these rules, the Defence force Finance and Accounting Service must provide a written statement outlining the advantages and disadvantages of withdrawing. The modify will not have effect until the retiree confirms receipt of the data and acknowledges that he or she still wishes to withdraw.

If, for some reason, the VA disability rating is withdrawn or reduced, SBP coverage may be resumed if the retiree makes a request within one yr.

Divorce. If a service fellow member's marriage ends, SBP deductions stop when the retiree notifies the Defense force Finance and Accounting Service. No more than deductions are made unless the retiree remarries. The retiree then has a year to opt out of the benefit for the new spouse. Retirees who do non notify the DFAS of their remarriage, and therefore fail to pass up coverage with approval of the new spouse, will owe any premiums not deducted from their retirement pay.

SBP benefits likewise can be provided for ex-spouses, and courts tin can gild coverage for them. They are eligible for benefits at the same cost equally spouses.

Contact: http://militarypay.defense.gov/survivor/sbp

TRANSITION ASSISTANCE

Almost major installations offer a diversity of services to retiring service members. Job-hunting seminars, one-on-one aid with writing resumes and computerized job banks are a few of the services available to retirees.

The Defence Department has set upwardly a one-terminate website called TurboTAP with guidebooks and other resources that can be downloaded and links to information on a diversity of transition help support. Registration is required.

Contact: www.turbotap.org

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Source: https://ec.militarytimes.com/benefits-handbook/retirement/other-benefits/

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