For what reason can OPM cancel a (Civil Service) survivors annuity
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My ex-husband and I were still married when he retired from the US Postal Service as a Letter Carrier. I was with him when he went to personnel to set up his retirement. He assigned me the survivors annuity. In 2008 we divorced. I was granted a court order to retain the annuity. The next year OPM marked the case pending and then canceled. Just found yesterday when I called OPM about filing SF2800
RESOLVED
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Private answer
If your husband elected a survivor benefit for you when he retired and you subsequently divorced, the divorce decree had to award you a survivor benefit to be payable upon his death as the divorce negated the original election. You need to read your divorce decree to see what it provides and if you were provided with one, then check with OPM as to why you are not collecting if he has passed away.
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Private answer
Let me begin by saying I think you are very smart to have done such a thorough job when sending your request to OPM. To answer your questions, if they find you should have received the survivor benefit, it will be paid retroactive back to the date of death. Are you certain the cost of the survivor benefit was not taken from your former spouse’s retirement check? If you are due a retroactive benefit and there was no cost taken from his retirement check, they may try to get you to pay for the reduction that should have been in place since the cancellation, but would likely waive the overpayment upon appeal. Having said that, OPM is very particular about survivor annuities for former spouses in divorces that occur after retirement. Just because a survivor annuity was in the COAP that went to OPM, does not mean that it was honored by OPM. In these post-retirement divorces, OPM requires that a survivor annuity be EXPRESSLY ordered in the “first order dividing property.” Failures like this occur regularly. If the property settlement is silent to a survivor annuity, but the COAP that was sent to OPM awarded one, upon OPM’s review of the decree/PSA against the COAP, it would have been cancelled. OPM is very firm if that was the case. If you are truly right, and have no success when contacting OPM, your situation might best be fixed by contacting your Senator or Congressional Representative and have them contact OPM on your behalf.
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Private answer
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