Q. I enrolled in Federal Employees Health Benefits on April 26, 1987. Resigned March 21, 1992. Temporary appointment Aug. 26, 2001, to Oct. 19, 2002. Re-enrolled Nov. 3, 2002. Resigned Sept. 27, 2008. Temporary appointment, not eligible to enroll Dec. 7, 2008, to July 3, 2010. Re-enrolled July 18, 2010, until present. Had COBRA between enrollments. My human resources department says I should be able to continue health benefits into retirement if I work through June 20. I am planning on retiring in December. I know the Office of Personnel Management has the final say but wanted to know if this response sounds correct.
A. To be eligible to carry your FEHB coverage into retirement, you need to have five consecutive years of coverage. Those periods don’t have to be continuous. They can be broken by times when you weren’t a federal employee or when you weren’t eligible to enroll in the program. What’s important is that you be covered each time when you left and re-enrolled immediately each time that you were eligible to enroll. You need to recheck your employment records to be sure that you met the requirements and that the total time you were covered adds up to at least five years.
