The Federal Employees' Group Life Insurance Act (FEGLIA) is a United States federal statute passed by the 83rd U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Dwight D. Eisenhower on August 17, 1954. The act provided for a group life insurance policy for most federal employees, similar to those provided for employees of most large industries.
The act established the Federal Employee Group Life Insurance (FEGLI) program, which covers over 4 million federal employees and is the largest group life insurance program in the world. Under the program, new federal employees are automatically enrolled in a basic insurance program (group term with no cash value) with the option of waiving enrollment, and may also obtain additional coverage for themselves and their families. Insurance premiums are deducted from the employees' payroll checks. The cost of the plan is shared between the employee and the federal government in a 2:1 ratio for Basic coverage only (except for USPS employees whose coverage is fully paid by USPS), any Optional coverage is paid fully by the employee.
The FEGLI program also covers NASA astronauts, in particular, those astronauts who died on board the space shuttles Challenger and Columbia.
FEGLI Coverage
For specific references to the below items, see the FEGLI booklet available on the OPM website.
Levels of Available Coverage
FEGLI offers four levels of coverage: Basic and three Options (A, B, and C). In order to enroll in any Option, the employee must be enrolled in Basic. Basic--the amount of coverage ("Basic Insurance Amount" or BIA) equals the employee's salary (rounded up to the next $1,000) plus an additional $2,000 (e.g. an employee making $97,500 would have $100,000 of coverage: $97,500 rounded up to $98,000 + $2,000 additional = $100,000), but the minimum level of coverage is $10,000 The Basic coverage also provides an "Extra Benefit" for employees who die before age 45; total Basic and Extra Benefit coverage is the BIA multiplied by an "age multiplication factor", which starts at 2.0 for employees 35 and younger and decreases by 0.1 for each year until age 45 when the Extra Benefit is no longer available. Option A--provides an additional $10,000 of coverage, regardless of salary Option B--provides a multiple of the employee's salary (rounded up to the next $1,000); the employee may choose a whole multiple of 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 times salary (no fractional multiples allowed) Option C--provides multiples for family members (the amounts per multiple are $5,000 for a spouse and $2,500 for each dependent child); the employee may choose a whole multiple of 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 (no fractional multiples allowed) Accidental death and dismemberment (AD&D) insurance is included under Basic and Option A ($10,000) at no additional charge, and is paid in addition to life insurance if applicable. There is no AD&D coverage under Options B or C. For accidental death, payment is 100% of the above amounts. For accidental dismemberment (defined as loss of a hand, foot, or sight in an eye) payment is 100% if two or more of the above are lost in the same accident, 50% if only one of the above is lost. In a specific accident no more than 100% of benefits can be paid and all injuries or death resulting from the same accident within one year of the accident are considered one event; however, in a subsequent accident benefits are paid separately.
Coverage during Employment
Employees are automatically enrolled in Basic upon appointment unless they choose to disenroll, while Optional coverage must be selected within 60 days of appointment, and in both cases enrollment and coverage are guaranteed regardless of the employee's prior medical history. Otherwise, coverage can only be obtained during an open season (unlike for Federal Employees Health Benefits insurance coverage, open seasons are not annual, and are in fact quite rare; there have been only nine open seasons in the program's history and none since 2016), by providing satisfactory medical information (after one year from the date of any prior waiver, but Option C cannot be selected on this basis), or a qualifying "life event" (marriage, divorce, acquisition of a child, or death of a spouse). If an employee leaves government service with no coverage and subsequently returns, the break must be at least 180 days in order to become eligible once again barring either a rare open season, proof of satisfactory medical information, or life event.