Information for Survivor Annuitants

This pamphlet answers questions most frequently asked by
Civil Service Retirement System survivor annuitants and their families.

RI 25-26
Revised April 2001
Previous edition is not usable

How to Contact OPM  

If this pamphlet does not fully answer your questions, call the Retirement Information Office toll-free at 1-888-767-6738. If you are calling within the local Washington, DC, area, dial 202-606-0500. If you use a touch tone telephone, an automatic answering system will guide you through a menu of most frequently requested topics. You also can speak to a Customer Service Specialist during business hours.

The automated telephone system is available seven days a week, even after business hours. Customer Service Specialists are available Monday through Friday, from 7:30 a.m. to 7:45 p.m. eastern time. They are not available on Federal holidays. If you use TDD equipment, call 1-800-878-5707 or 202-606-0551 if calling within the local Washington, DC, area.

If you call on a rotary telephone, you will not have access to the automated features. However, you can speak to a Customer Service Specialist during business hours. Be sure to have your survivor annuity claim number and personal identification number on hand when calling either the automated system or a specialist.

We also provide retirement brochures, forms, and other information on the Internet at http://www.opm.gov/retire and respond to emails sent to retire@opm.gov.

If you write to us, please be sure to state your questions clearly and give your full name, survivor annuity claim number (CSF number), and the full name and date of birth of the deceased Federal employee or retiree. This allows us to identify the proper records promptly. Our mailing address for general correspondence is

U.S. Office of Personnel Management
Retirement Operations Center
P.O. Box 45
Boyers, PA 16017-0045.

General Information

A survivor annuity is a monthly payment to eligible family members of deceased Federal employees or annuitants. Please note that the law does not allow survivors to choose a lump sum payment instead of the monthly benefit provided.

Remember that any of the events listed below can affect your entitlement to survivor benefits. It is vital that you report any such event to us promptly to avoid receiving money that you are not entitled to. These circumstances include:

1. Death of any survivor annuitant (child, widow, widower, former spouse, or insurable interest annuitant).
2. Court-ordered termination or reduction of a former spouse's annuity.
3. Marriage of any child who is a survivor annuitant.
4. Marriage before age 55 of any widow, widower, or former spouse who is a survivor annuitant. This does not apply to insurable interest survivor benefits or to other survivors who were married to the deceased for 30 years or more.
5. Employment or marked improvement in the health of a son or daughter who is receiving a survivor annuity after age 18 because of incapacity for self-support as a result of disability which began before age 18.
6. Any change in the court-appointed representative or in the payee we selected for a minor or incompetent survivor. (For example, when an individual or institution is no longer responsible for an annuitant for whom it had been acting as payee).
7. Change in school attendance of an adult student receiving annuity payments after reaching age 18 (such as course-load reduction to less than full-time attendance, interruption of attendance for more than five months between terms, attending a non-recognized school, graduating, or dropping out of school).

All survivor annuities terminate at the end of the month before the above-listed events occur.

We must collect any benefits paid to a person not entitled to those payments. You should not accept benefits to which you are not entitled. If you do, you will be required to repay them.

Payments and Address Changes

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) computes the amount of your survivor annuity and authorizes the Department of the Treasury to make payments to you. Retirement law specifies that your annuity is payable once each month on the first business day of the month. Please note that Sundays and Federal holidays are not business days. Your payment covers the annuity due for the month before the month in which the payment is made.

If we have a reason to pay you for less than a full month, we divide your monthly annuity by 30 to compute a daily rate (even if there are not 30 days in that particular month). The daily rate is multiplied by the number of days you were eligible for an annuity that month (up to 30 days). The resulting amount is your annuity for that part of the month.

Cost-of-living adjustments allowed by law will increase your annuity. The amount of these annual adjustments depends on Consumer Price Index increases. If your deceased spouse received annuity for less than one year or died before retirement, you will get a percentage of the first cost-of-living adjustment. The percentage depends on how long you or your spouse were eligible for an annuity before the effective date of the increase. When we adjust your payments, we will send you a statement showing the effect of the increase on your annuity.

The Department of the Treasury pays annuities either by transferring funds to your account at a bank, credit union, or similar financial institution or by mailing a check to you. After January 1, 1999, all annuity payments will be transferred directly to your account, unless you invoke a self-waiver.

Because we send information to you at the mailing address you provide, you should tell us quickly about changes in your mailing address or where your payment should go. To do this, call our Retirement Information Office as described on page 1 or write to:

U.S. Office of Personnel Management
Change-of-Address Section
P.O. Box 440
Boyers, PA 16017-0440.

Please provide your full name, the full name of the deceased person, your survivor annuity claim number (CSF number), Social Security number, and your new address when calling or writing. If you change your financial institution, please ensure you have the institution's correct name and routing number and the correct account number. Address changes processed before the middle of the month typically mean that the next payment is sent to the new financial institution.

To ensure that no annuity payments are missed, we recommend that you keep your old account open until the next payment is deposited in your new account.