pepper12, you are not in the same boat because ghk1962 is leaving at his/her MRA with 10 or more years of service which allows an immediate but age reduced annuity. In that case, he/she is electing to postpone collecting to reduce or eliminate in the age penalty. In your situation, you do not indicate how many years of service you will have when you resign but the fact that you will not be your Minimum Retirement Age (MRA) means if you leave your retirement contributions in the retirement fund, you will be eligible to collect a pension in the future, providing that you are vested in FERS, meaning you have paid into the retirement fund for five or more years. With a deferred retirement option, you only get an annuity for work in the past. There will be no credit for your unused sick leave, there will be no reinstatement of your FEHB or FEGLI. For those three benefits you must be eligible to retire on an immediate annuity, even if you elect to postpone it. The cost of FEHB in retirement is whatever current employees pay except in retirement we pay monthly versus bi-weekly. With respect to survivor benefits, for ghk1962, if they die before electing their annuity to commence, the Office of Personnel Management deems them to have filed on the date of death and survivor benefits are payable to all eligible survivors. In your case, that rule also does not apply. If you die before meeting the eligibility requirement, which includes have filed a retirement application, no survivor benefits are payable. OPM will just refund the contributions you have paid into the retirement fund according to your designation of beneficiary form or the statutory order of precedence if no designation is on file.