The *KISS Guide to DC Retirement’s Office of Pay and Retirement Services

**Keep It Simple Stupid

From Pipeline Editor Jim O’Neill:
One of our members asked me if I knew how he could confirm he still had approximately 25% of his base pay at time of retirement from USSS in residual Basic FEGLI life insurance that his spouse would receive upon his death. Coincidentally, I had recently tried to confirm this for myself and received conflicting answers from OPM and DC Retirement’s Office of Pay and Retirement Services (OPRS).

After I spoke at some length with OPRS’s Kobie Brooks and Rorie Mason, I learned that the FEGLI information is available online from their webpage at fpp.dc.gov under the Benefits tab after you log on. I typically access this site in early February each year to print my 1099-R and again in late February to see what the annual increase in the monthly annuity will be in March. Since users must change their password every 60 days, I always need to call OPRS in January to get a temporary password issued. So Kobie gave me a temporary password to access this webpage and I confirmed that I did have the 25% FEGLI insurance described above.

During these phone conversations, I also asked how I could determine the monthly annuity benefit for my wife should I predecease her. I had always understood that benefit to be approximately 40% of my current annuity; Rorie explained that this is not the case. Rather, the benefit is 40% of my base pay at retirement subject to monthly increases determined by the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for each month that I live following my retirement. (The next day, I received the calculations from OPRS regarding my wife’s survivor annuity.) She also explained how to contact the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) if I want to confirm beneficiary information on my FEGLI account.

Rorie provided the attached document that you can use as a guide in addressing all of the above topics with OPRS in a very timely manner: