FEGLI Calculator

FEGLI is group term life insurance. It builds no cash value and you cannot borrow against it, but it covers you wherever you are, whatever the cause of death (OPM Handbook, "Kind of Insurance"). There are two kinds: Basic, which most new employees get automatically unless they waive it, and three kinds of Optional insurance, which you must elect and which require Basic: Option A (Standard), Option B (Additional) and Option C (Family). Basic and Option A include accidental death and dismemberment (AD&D) benefits for employees at no extra cost, paid on top of the regular benefit. Options B and C do not, and AD&D coverage stops when you retire.

The employee pays two-thirds of the Basic premium and the Government one-third; the U.S. Postal Service pays the full Basic cost for Postal employees. You pay the whole cost of Optional insurance. The rules are in 5 U.S.C. chapter 87 and 5 CFR part 870.

1. Take your annual rate of basic pay, locality pay included. If pay is capped by law, use the capped amount you are actually paid.
2. Round it up to the next even $1,000 (unchanged if it is already a whole thousand).
3. Add $2,000. The minimum Basic is $10,000 and there is no maximum.

OPM's example: a $48,586 salary rounds to $49,000 and the BIA is $51,000. A salary of exactly $48,000 gives $50,000. Bonuses, allowances, most overtime and holiday pay, and night differential for GS employees are not counted. A few extra items are: locality pay, special pay adjustments for law enforcement officers, premium pay for standby duty and for administratively uncontrollable overtime for law enforcement officers, availability pay for criminal investigators, and the straight-time pay for regular overtime hours of firefighters (Handbook, "Annual Rates of Basic Pay"). The GS helper in the calculator gives base plus locality only and does not add these. Your BIA changes whenever a raise moves you into a new $1,000 bracket, so check it after the 2027 pay raise. To find your salary, use the GS pay calculator.

Extra Benefit. If you are under 45, the Basic death benefit is your BIA times an age multiplication factor, at no added premium. It does not apply to Option A, B or C, and it stops mattering at 45.

OPM Handbook example Clara: she dies at 40 with a $57,126 salary. Her BIA is $60,000, the factor is 1.5, and $90,000 of Basic is payable. On OPM's program page, a 40-year-old with a $48,000 BIA has $72,000 of Basic ($48,000 plus $24,000).

• Option A (Standard): $10,000 flat, plus $10,000 AD&D for employees. Its premium rises by age band, from $0.20 biweekly under 35 to $6.00 at 60 and over. After you retire, premiums stop the month after your 65th birthday, and the coverage reduces 2% a month to 25% ($2,500).
• Option B (Additional): 1 to 5 multiples of your annual pay rounded up to the next $1,000. It does not include the extra $2,000 and has no Extra Benefit, and there is no minimum amount. OPM's example: pay of $52,578 gives a BIA of $55,000, and each Option B multiple is $53,000.
• Option C (Family): 1 to 5 multiples; each multiple is $5,000 for your spouse and $2,500 for each eligible child. Three multiples pay $15,000 on a spouse's death and $7,500 on a child's. Benefits are paid to you, the number of multiples is the same for every family member, and the premium depends on your age, not your family's.

You may have Basic with any combination of A, B and C. Options A, B and C all cost more as you move up each five-year age band, from the pay period after your birthday.

These are OPM's current rates, effective the first pay period that started on or after October 1, 2021, as published on OPM's FEGLI program information page (announced in BAL 21-204). OPM can change them; this site checked on October 23, 2026.

Employees. Basic: $0.1600 biweekly or $0.3467 monthly per $1,000 of BIA, for all ages (Postal employees: $0). The Government pays $0.0800 biweekly or $0.1733 monthly per $1,000, one-third of the total $0.2400 and $0.5200, which the Postal Service pays in full for Postal employees (OPM notice, 86 FR 50382, FR Doc 2021-19475). Option A is per $10,000 policy, Option B per $1,000 of coverage, Option C per multiple.

Annuitants (monthly). Basic, per $1,000 of the BIA at retirement:

Annuitant Option A, B and C use the monthly employee rates above through age 64. From 65, Option A is free; Option B and C are free for multiples on Full Reduction, and multiples kept at No Reduction pay these monthly rates: Option B per $1,000 $1.040 at 65-69, $1.863 at 70-74, $3.900 at 75-79 and $6.240 at 80 and over; Option C per multiple $6.13, $8.30, $12.48 and $16.90.

To keep FEGLI as an annuitant, all of the following must be true (OPM Handbook):

• You are entitled to retire on an immediate annuity under a civilian retirement system (a deferred or postponed annuity does not qualify; see the FERS retirement calculator).
• You were insured for the 5 years of service just before your annuity starts, or for the full period you were eligible if that was less than 5 years. This test applies separately to Basic and to each option and each Option B or C multiple. Handbook example Cindy met it for Basic and her first 2 multiples of Option B but not for her last 3, so only 2 continued; example Ed kept Option C but not Option B.
• You are enrolled in FEGLI on your retirement date and have not converted to an individual policy.

Your coverage does not reduce at 65 while you are still an employee. After you retire, you pay monthly from your annuity at the annuitant rates. Your Basic Insurance Amount is frozen at the amount in force when you retire, so a later raise does not change it. If you choose not to keep Basic, you cannot keep any Optional insurance.

Reductions begin at the start of the second month after your 65th birthday or after your retirement, whichever is later. If you turn 65 on March 15, nothing changes in March or April and the first reduction is May 1 (Handbook, example Faye).

• 75% Reduction (default): Basic falls 2% of the BIA each month until 25% remains, 38 months, and it is free from the month after your 65th birthday. Handbook example Emma: BIA $57,000 falls $1,140 a month to $14,250.
• 50% Reduction: falls 1% a month until 50% remains, 50 months, and you keep paying for life. Handbook example Floyd: BIA $62,000 falls $620 a month to $31,000.
• No Reduction: the full BIA stays, you keep paying for life (Handbook example Elaine, BIA $50,000).
• Option A: falls 2% a month ($200) to $2,500; premiums stop the month after your 65th birthday and it is free once it starts to reduce. No election.
• Option B and C: for each multiple choose Full Reduction (2% a month to $0 over 50 months, free once reducing) or No Reduction (never reduces, you keep paying your age-band premium). Handbook example Gwen: three $70,000 multiples on Full Reduction ($210,000) lose $4,200 a month. You get a second chance to change this shortly before 65.

You can cancel a 50% or No Reduction election at any time and your Basic drops to what the 75% election would have left, without a refund. You cannot change a 50% Reduction to No Reduction, and you cannot change 75% to a higher election.

Every premium cell is stored from OPM's published table and compared in tests with a verbatim copy of that table. Coverage amounts reproduce the OPM FEGLI Handbook examples for Carlos, Clara, Homer, the Option C multiples, the capped-pay BIA, Ian and Ileana (AD&D), Emma, Floyd, Elaine, Faye, George, Gwen, Henry, Heidi and Natalie, and the program-page examples. The premium engine also matches 209 inputs run through OPM's own online FEGLI calculator script. The Handbook's premium examples use older rate tables (2012 and 2016), so they cannot be reproduced against the current rates and are not claimed.

Out of scope, not approximated:

• Living benefits (full or partial), which change your Basic amount
• Assignment of ownership, court orders and beneficiary rules
• Conversion to an individual policy and the 31-day extension
• Changing Option B or C multiples during an open season or after a qualifying life event, and waivers with medical evidence
• Compensationers (workers' compensation, paid every four weeks), reemployed annuitants, and employees who retired before January 1, 1990
• Part-time, piecework, intermittent, concurrent and nonpay-status pay rules; pay that is not paid over 26 pay periods; daily proration when you change payroll offices
• Direct premium payments when pay is insufficient, and tax treatment

Premiums are rounded to the cent for each type of insurance, and the Government share of Basic uses OPM's printed rates ($0.0800 biweekly, $0.1733 monthly per $1,000). Your payroll office may round differently by a cent.