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A retirement checklist for federal employees

Updated . First published May 18, 2022. Facts checked against the sources listed below.

Federal retirement works best when it is planned years ahead, because several of the most important rules look back five years from your retirement date. This checklist covers what to confirm, in roughly the order it matters.

1. Know the three parts of your FERS retirement

OPM describes FERS as benefits from three sources: a Basic Benefit Plan (your pension), Social Security, and the Thrift Savings Plan. Two of them, Social Security and the TSP, go with you if you leave federal service before retirement.

2. Claim your full TSP match

If you are under FERS, your agency adds 1% of your basic pay automatically and matches the first 5% you contribute (dollar for dollar on 3%, 50 cents on the dollar on the next 2%). Contributing at least 5% is how you collect the full match. See the Thrift Savings Plan, explained.

3. Check your FEHB 5-year rule

To keep FEHB in retirement, you must have been enrolled for the 5 years of service immediately before your annuity starts (or since your first chance to enroll, if shorter), and retire on an immediate annuity. If you have been covered elsewhere, check now, not in your final year.

4. Check your FEGLI 5-year rule

The same 5-year look-back applies to each part of your FEGLI coverage. Coverage you want to carry into retirement has to be in place five years before you go. See keeping FEGLI after you retire.

5. Decide how much life insurance you need after 65

Most FEGLI coverage shrinks after you are retired and 65 unless you pay extra, the cost of keeping Options B and C rises steeply with age, and you cannot add coverage after you retire. Work out what your spouse or family would need, for how long, and compare ways to cover it. See FEGLI premiums at each age.

6. Plan for long-term care another way, for now

The Federal Long Term Care Insurance Program has been closed to new applicants since December 2022, with the current suspension running to December 19, 2026 unless OPM ends or extends it. If you are not already enrolled, plan for long-term care costs through savings or other coverage.

7. Update every beneficiary form

FEGLI, your TSP, your retirement benefits and any private insurance each have their own beneficiary designation. A divorce does not cancel an old FEGLI designation naming a former spouse. See how to name FEGLI beneficiaries.

Before the paperwork

A review five or more years out leaves room to fix gaps while the look-back rules still allow it.

Sources

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