The status of employee benefits is more settled, following long-standing policies that most recently were invoked during the sequester-related furloughs of recent months. FEHB coverage continues, with the employee share to be paid retroactively later if an employee’s pay for a pay period would not be large enough to cover it. Premiums under FEDVIP and FLTCIP insurance similarly would accumulate but if a shutdown went on for a number of weeks, those programs would directly bill enrollees. FEGLI insurance continues without cost to the employee. There would be no impact on an employee’s eventual retirement benefit unless an employee was on unpaid leave for more than six months in a calendar year—an impossibility at this point except for employees who for some reason were on unpaid status for three months earlier in the year. Also, the October retiree payments went out as scheduled.
