Federal Manager's Daily Report

The OPM letter (see above) emphasizes that employees who are on payroll deduction for long-term care premiums should contact Long Term Care Partners (Partners) when they are about to retire or transfer agencies so that Partners can begin requesting deductions from the new payroll/annuity location. (However, when there is a mass transfer that the servicing payroll location has communicated to Partners, individual employees do not need to report the transfer.) The OPM letter advises:

  • Deductions do not automatically transfer to the gaining agency/retirement system as they do with Federal Employees’ Health Benefits and Federal Employees’ Group Life Insurance premiums.

  • Employees should contact Partners as soon as they know the specifics of when and where they will be transferring. Depending on when the employee contacts Partners, it may not be able to get a payroll deduction changed over in time for the first paycheck at the new location. If that’s the case, the employee will automatically receive a direct bill from Partners for the premiums due that were not collected through payroll deduction.

  • Premiums for FLTCIP coverage cannot be deducted from the annuities of employees retiring under CSRS or FERS while they are receiving interim payments (sometimes called “special pay”). This means that until OPM finalizes their annuities, Partners must bill them directly for the premiums due.

It is important that employees promptly pay direct bill(s) they receive to keep their FLTCIP coverage current.

You can find these and other points here: http://www.opm.gov/insure/ltc

OPM does not expect agencies to counsel employees on their FLTCIP deductions, but it does ask that administrators to respond to employees’ questions on these concerns by directing them to call Long Term Care Partners at 1-800-582-3337.