Lump-Sum Payment Upon the Death of a Former CSRS Employee or CSRS Offset Employee

A deceased former CSRS or CSRS Offset employee is an individual who was not on a federal government’s employment roll at the time of death. Nor did the deceased former CSRS or CSRS Offset employee qualify for immediate retirement at the time of leaving federal service. The former employee decided to leave federal service and, assuming the employee had at least five years of creditable service, elected a deferred retirement. With the minimum five years of creditable CSRS service, the departed employee was eligible to receive their CSRS annuity starting when the departed employee reaches their 62nd birthday. The departed employee must apply for their deferred retirement and use the Office of Personnel Management’s (OPM) Online Retirement Application (ORA) platform.

It should be emphasized that if a former CSRS or CSRS Offset employee who left federal and elected a deferred retirement, needs to apply for deferred retirement when they reach age 62. If they do not apply, OPM will not calculate the deferred CSRS annuity until the former employee formally applies online. If the former employee applies at age 70, then monthly CSRS annuity payment will begin at that time. No retroactive payments will be made.

Another requirement that a departing CSRS or CSRS Offset employee must meet in order to be eligible for deferred retirement is that the departed employee did not request a lump-sum payment of the employee’s contributions (via payroll deduction) to the CSRS Retirement and Disability Fund. The departed employee must make the election to receive a lump-sum payment of their CSRS retirement contributions by submitting Standard Form 2802 (Application for Refund of Retirement Deductions Civil Service Retirement System). Besides the contributions a CSRS or CSRS Offset employee made to the CSRS Retirement and Disability Fund, the lump sum payment consists of any deposits the departed employee for active-duty military service (including interest paid), for temporary (non-deduction) service (including interest paid) and redeposit service (including interest paid).

What Happens if a Former CSRS/CSRS Offset Dies Between Leaving Federal Service and Applying for Deferred Retirement

In the event a departed CSRS or CSRS Offset employee dies between their departure date from federal servcie and when they for their deferred retirement, then a monthly survivor annuity is not available to any eligible family member, including a spouse. Instead, a lump-sum death benefit will be paid to eligible person(s). To name a beneficiary, the deceased former employee must have filled out and submitted prior to their death (Standard Form 3102 (Designation of Beneficiary Civil Service and Federal Employees Retirement Systems) (formerly Standard Form 2808) to OPM before the former employee’s death.

If the deceased CSRS/CSRS Offset employee did not designate a beneficiary, the lump-sum death benefit will be payable in the following order of precedence:

1. To the deceased employee’s widow or widower.
2. To the deceased employee’s child or children, in equal shares, with the share of any deceased child distributed among the descendants of that child.
3. To the deceased employee’s parents (or a parent).
4. To the employee’s executor or administrator of the employee’s estate, or
5. If none of the above, to the deceased employee’s next of kin who may be entitled under the laws of the state in which the employee lived at the time of death.

A CSRS or CSRS Offset employee does not have to designate a beneficiary via Form SF 3102 unless the employee wishes the lump-sum death benefit to be paid differently from the order of precedence shown above. However, a relative of the deceased employee must report the death of the former CSRS or CSRS Offset employee to OPM. OPM must be notified of the employee’s death  whether or not the deceased former CSRS or CSRS Offset employee filled out Form SF 3102 (formerly Form SF 2808).

To report the death of a former CSRS/CSRS Offset employee, surviving family members need to complete an online form, Report of Death Form.

A portion of Form SF 3102 is shown here:

Attach to Form SF 2800 should be a copy of the former employee’s death certificate and, if applicable, a copy of the certificate of the marriage to the widow/widower. The Report of Death Form, Form SF 2800, together with any other documents, should be mailed to:

Office of Personnel Management
Retirement Operations Center
Attention: Survivor Processing Section
P.O. Box 46
Boyars, PA 16017-0046

Surviving family members of deceased former CSRS or CSRS Offset employees are reminded that unless the Report of Death Form and accompanying documents are filed with OPM, no lump-sum death benefit will be paid to any surviving family members. There is no statute of limitations for filing a Report of Death Form SF 2800. A deceased former CSRS or CSRS Offset could have left federal service more than forty to fifty years ago and no family member has ever filed a Report of Death Form SF 2800. OPM is waiting for a family member to claim the lump-sum death benefit, and until a family member (widow/widower, adult child, a sibling) does so, the federal government will continue to hold onto the deceased’s contributions, deposits and redeposits to the Civil Service Retirement Disability Fund.