What You Need to Know: Insurance Benefits

There are three forms of optional insurance:

• Option A is an additional $10,000;
• Option B is coverage for up to five times of salary; and
• Option C is coverage on family members up to $25,000 on a spouse and $12,500 on a child.

For optional coverage, premiums vary according to the individual's age and the enrollee pays the entire premium cost.

FEGLI is term insurance only; it has no cash-accumulating feature. However, FEGLI does have certain other features common in privately offered insurance, such as accidental death and dismemberment coverage and "living benefits" for the terminally ill.

Long-Term Care Insurance--The Federal Long Term Care Insurance Program (FLTCIP) allows employees, retirees and certain family members to buy coverage for nursing home care, at-home care and other forms of living assistance.

Coverage can range up to $2,000 a week for life. There are numerous options available, including several types of inflation protection, differing waiting periods before benefits begin, differing lengths of benefit periods, varying types of services to be covered, and others. All of these choices also affect the premium.

Premiums are locked in for life when the individual buys the coverage, with rates lower for those buying at younger ages.

Dental and Vision Insurance --The Federal Dental and Vision Insurance Program (FEDVIP) offers employees the chance to sign up for dental coverage, vision coverage, or both. Enrollment options include self-only, self and family, or self plus one¿although the "one" would have to be someone eligible for family coverage. Some plans have both high and low options.

There are three vision plans, each with national coverage, which offer services such as annual exams, lenses and frames, discounts on laser vision correction and other vision care.

There are seven dental plans, four of them national and three of them regional. Covered services include exams, fillings, oral surgery and other dental care; orthodontic services also are provided, although only after a waiting period.

You can find detailed information on each program here.