Federal Retirement

Image Contributor: Anthony Ricci

As a federal employee, you have spent years in your career and want a comfortable retirement. But it’s often tough to find advice in this area that fits your situation with government employment.

If you read the newspaper or surf the web, chances are you have come across some articles with retirement advice. For many people, these insights can be quite helpful: catching up on retirement savings, estimating how much retirement income that you will need, deciding when to retire, and so on.

But in many cases, these insights don’t matter as much to federal government employees. In fact, a great deal of the advice may not apply at all. Why?

Federal Employees Need Tailored Retirement Guidance

As a government employee, you need information that covers your unique federal employee benefits and they fit into your financial picture. One big question: how you can optimize your employee benefits for a comfortable and secure retirement after you separate from service?

It’s important to be able to answer questions such as this, so that you can make confident and well-informed decisions for your family and yourself.

Here’s a few reasons why generic retirement planning advice doesn’t cut it for federal employees – and, instead, how tailored guidance can make a world of difference for their unique employee benefit programs.

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If you are an employee of the U.S. government, then you and millions of your colleagues have access to the largest life insurance program in the world: the Federal Employees’ Group Life Insurance Program (FEGLI). It’s one of a number of employee benefits available to the federal civil service.

Created in 1954, FEGLI provides group term life insurance that may serve several purposes.

Federal employees depend on FEGLI for many reasons in the event of untimely death: income replacement, death benefit protection, coverage for debts or expenses that may overwhelm survivors, financial safeguards for young families, and other benefits.  

FEGLI often features a lower requirement for participation compared to other life insurance policies. For private-sector group life insurance – or just personal life insurance coverage in general – people are often required to undergo a medical examination or to meet other eligibility criteria. Read More

As a postal or federal employee, you have high-quality federal benefits. In time, they will play directly into your retirement, whether you will be eligible to retire in the next 15 years or are a new career hire.

Among your many benefits are programs that directly affect your financial future. Tax-advantaged retirement savings plans, guaranteed-pension payouts, and cost-efficient life insurance coverage are just a few of those programs.

Your challenge is to ensure that you maximize what is available to you. Making smart choices early will help you reap rewards for the rest of your life. So, it’s important to weave your federal employee benefits into your complete financial picture to set yourself up for the most successful retirement possible.

To get there, you need to avoid the mistakes some federal employees make with their benefits and retirement planning. These slip-ups can cost you tens of thousands of dollars in lost benefits. And what’s more, once these mistakes are made, they can’t be reversed or changed. Read More