Initial Enrollment Period

All Employees in eligible positions are automatically enrolled in Basic Life Insurance unless they choose to waive it. Basic Life Insurance is effective on the first day you enter a pay and duty status.

New employees have 31 days from the date of their appointment to elect additional Optional Insurance or to waive coverage entirely. Employees must be enrolled in Basic Life in order to elect Optional Insurance. Your completed Life Insurance Election Form, SF-2817, must be submitted to your servicing Human Resources Office in a timely manner. Additionally, employees are strongly encouraged to submit the SF-2823 Designation of Beneficiary form.

The Types of Coverage Available

Basic Life

Basic life is based on your annual basic rate of pay, rounded up to the nearest $1,000, plus $2,000 (example: annual salary is $35,260, rounded up to $36,000 plus $2,000 equals $38,000). FEGLI insurance is a term insurance policy and has no cash value.

Optional Insurance

There are three types of Optional Insurance available to employees: Option A (standard optional insurance), Option B (additional optional), and Option C (family optional insurance).

  • Option A insurance provides $10,000 of additional coverage.
  • Option B insurance coverage comes in 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 multiples of your annual basic rate of pay.
  • Option C coverage insures your spouse for up to 5 multiples of $5,000 and/or eligible children for up to 5 multiples of $2,500.

Cost of Insurance

The cost of Basic Life Insurance is shared between the employee and the Government, you pay 2/3 of the total cost and the Government pays 1/3. Your age is not a factor in calculating the cost of Basic Life insurance.

The employee pays the full cost of Optional insurance, which depends on the employee's age.

To calculate the cost and face value of your coverage, please visit the online, interactive FEGLI calculator.

FEGLI Handbook

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