FEGLI gets more expensive with age, and the survivor election is one of the few decisions you genuinely cannot revisit. We run the numbers on both together, because they answer the same question.
These two get treated as separate items on a checklist. They are not. Both are answers to the same question — what happens to the person who depends on your income when you are not there — and answering one without the other is how people end up paying twice for the same protection, or once for none of it.
Basic coverage carries reduction elections that change what you pay and what remains from 65. Option B premiums rise in steps and become expensive through the seventies and eighties — often at exactly the point the coverage is least needed.
A reduction to your annuity in exchange for a continuing payment to your spouse. It requires notarised spousal consent to elect anything less than the maximum, and it is one of the very few federal decisions that genuinely cannot be revisited.
This is the part that is missed. A surviving spouse can only keep FEHB coverage if they are receiving a survivor annuity. Declining the survivor election does not just remove an income — it removes their health insurance.
Common questions
It depends on what the coverage is for. If it exists to replace your income for a dependent spouse, compare it against the survivor annuity, which may do the same job more cheaply. If it exists to cover a mortgage that will be paid off, its usefulness has an end date. If it exists to leave something behind, price it against the alternatives — because Option B premiums in your seventies are substantial and rise again in your eighties.
Under FERS, a full survivor annuity of 50% costs a reduction of 10% of your annuity, and a partial election of 25% costs 5%. CSRS uses a different calculation. Against that cost you should weigh not only the income but the FEHB eligibility that travels with it.
Generally no. There is a limited window shortly after retirement, and specific provisions for a marriage that occurs after retirement, but the ordinary answer is that this decision is made once. It is the single strongest argument for taking the review seriously before the paperwork goes in.
Possibly not at the full level, and that is a legitimate and common conclusion. What matters is that the decision is made with the FEHB consequence understood and the numbers in front of you both, rather than as a default. Your spouse has to sign for it either way.
A benefit review covers this alongside everything else, because in practice it is never a standalone decision.
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Related: Retirement benefit review · TSP guidance · Retirement paperwork
