Veterans Benefits Network-When Your Spouse Dies (2024)

FAQs

Veterans Benefits Network-When Your Spouse Dies? ›

VA Survivor Benefits. What are veteran survivor benefits? As a veteran's surviving spouse, child or parent, you may qualify for certain benefits, such as help with burial costs and compensation or pension. You may also qualify for health care, life insurance, or financial assistance to help pay for school or training.

Survivor's Pension - The Survivors Pension benefit, which may also be referred to as Death Pension, is a tax-free monetary benefit payable to a low-income, un-remarried surviving spouse and/or unmarried child(ren) of a deceased veteran with wartime service.

These regulations will authorize VA to pay, without a written application, most eligible surviving spouses basic monetary burial benefits at the maximum amount authorized in law through automated systems rather than reimbursing them for actual costs incurred.

The Dependent VA Benefits 10-year rule for military spouses stipulates that to be eligible for certain VA benefits, spouses of veterans must have been married to the veteran for at least 10 years, during which the veteran served at least 10 years of active duty or equivalent Reserve or Guard service.

If you're the surviving spouse, child, or parent of a service member who died in the line of duty, or the survivor of a Veteran who died from a service-related injury or illness, you may be able to get a tax-free monetary benefit called VA Dependency and Indemnity Compensation (VA DIC).

Surviving spouse, at full retirement age or older, generally gets 100% of the worker's basic benefit amount. Surviving spouse, age 60 or older, but under full retirement age, gets between 71% and 99% of the worker's basic benefit amount.

“Survivor benefits” and “widow benefits” are both terms used for the same Social Security benefits paid to the surviving spouse and dependents after a person's death.

Types of VA surviving spouse benefits include Dependency and Indemnity Compensation (DIC), death (survivors) pension, housebound pension and Aid & Attendance.

Eligible survivors are paid automatically upon notification of a Veteran's death, without the need to submit a claim. If the Veteran had a service-related death on or after September 11, 2001, the maximum burial allowance is $2,000.

Survivor Benefit Plan

Beneficiaries may include the surviving spouse, former spouse, children or a disabled dependent. In cases where the deceased did not have a spouse or children, another person of natural insurable interest, such as a brother or sister, may be eligible.

Can a widow remarry and keep VA benefits? ›

Therefore, a surviving spouse who remarries is no longer eligible to receive VA benefits. Exceptions: If a surviving spouse remarries after age 55, he/she may retain eligibility for certain VA benefits under Public Law (PL) 107-330.

Under federal law, VA disability benefits are not marital property which courts can divide in a divorce. However, the VA disability payments are not invisible to the court, and do count as income when calculating child support or alimony.

The ex-spouse of a U.S. military veteran will be entitled to receive some spousal benefits. However, these benefits may be limited by factors such as how long the spouse was married to the veteran and the number of years of their active service.

These benefits are payable for life unless the spouse begins collecting a retirement benefit that is greater than the survivor benefit. Beneficiaries entitled to two types of Social Security payments receive the higher of the two amounts.

DIC Payment Amounts

The amount DIC recipients get each month depends mostly on their relationship to the deceased veteran. Other factors, such as whether the veteran was disabled, may also apply. As of Dec. 1, 2023, a surviving spouse can generally receive $1,612.75 monthly.

Spouse benefit provisions of private pension plans reflect the influence of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) . Pension plans are not required by law, but once established, ERISA requires that they provide for annuities to spouses of deceased employees.

To be eligible for this benefit, the claimant must be the eligible surviving spouse and/or child(ren) of a deceased wartime Veteran, who meets specific income and net worth requirements.

SBP provides up to 55 percent of a service member's retired pay to an eligible beneficiary upon the death of the member. After the service member passes away, the SBP annuity is paid out monthly to the surviving spouse, or to the child or children of the member.