In this solo episode of Widow Life and Money, I walk through the full landscape of military survivor benefits, broken into three parts so you can skip to whatever applies to your situation: active duty deaths, military retiree deaths, and veterans who never vested in a pension. Wherever you land in this episode, these benefits trace back to a commitment this country made after the Civil War to care for the spouses and children left behind, and my goal is simply to point you toward the right resources and the right next step, one at a time.
For an active duty death, your first point of contact is a casualty assistance officer, or CAO, whose experience can vary widely, so it’s worth asking how many cases they’ve handled. Early on you’ll receive the $100,000 death gratuity within about 72 hours, followed by the SGLI payout of up to $500,000, and under the HEART Act you can roll up to $600,000 combined into a Roth IRA within twelve months. From there, two ongoing benefits shape the next several decades: VA Dependency and Indemnity Compensation, or DIC, a tax-free monthly payment that’s presumed automatic for an active duty death, and the Survivor Benefit Plan, or SBP, a Department of Defense annuity equal to 55% of what retired pay would have been. Since 2023, the old dollar-for-dollar offset between DIC and SBP, sometimes still called the widow’s tax, is gone, so you now receive both. I also cover the one-year housing bridge, a government-paid move, TRICARE at the active duty rate for three years, lifetime commissary and exchange privileges, and the remarriage rule that ends DIC, SBP, and education benefits before age 55, which is exactly what the pending Love Lives On Act aims to change.
On education, I walk through the decision between the Fry Scholarship and Chapter 35 DEA benefits, an irrevocable election where Fry is the stronger choice for the vast majority of Gold Star families, paying tuition and fees directly to the school plus a housing allowance, versus DEA’s flat monthly stipend paid to the student. For burial honors, the Department of Defense typically covers funeral and interment costs and travel to the service for immediate family, coordinated through your CAO.
The experience shifts considerably for a military retiree’s death, since there’s no CAO shepherding the process and much of it falls on you: calling DFAS to report the death and start SBP, then calling the VA to stop disability compensation and pursue DIC eligibility, which for a retiree isn’t automatically presumed and instead requires establishing a service connection, something the PACT Act has made easier for many presumptive conditions. I also cover the Reserve Component SBP decision your spouse made years earlier, options A, B, or C, which determines whether an annuity exists at all and when it begins, and the different, less-generous burial benefit structure for retirees compared to active duty deaths.
For veterans who never received a pension or disability rating, I cover the VA Survivors Pension, a need-based program with income and net worth limits, along with burial and memorial benefits that remain available regardless of disability status, and the paths that can still lead to DIC eligibility after the fact through presumptive conditions. Across every scenario, I strongly encourage working with an accredited Veterans Service Officer, who by federal law must represent you at no cost, rather than the unaccredited claims coaches and pension poachers who charge up-front fees or push high-commission products; you can verify accreditation through the VA’s public database at va.gov/ogc/apps/accreditation.
Resources Mentioned:
- VA Office of General Counsel Accreditation Search: va.gov/ogc/apps/accreditation
- Love Lives On Act
Show Transcript
Daniel: Welcome, listeners, to this episode of Widow Life and Money. Today we’re covering a broad range of topics related to military survivor benefits. However you found your way to this episode, know that my heart is with you as you navigate what can be an overwhelming and confusing amount of information in the middle of your grief journey. Maybe you’re helping someone else through this process, or you’re learning about it as a professional or a friend. Thank you for the help you’re giving to that person in need.
You probably don’t need to listen to this whole episode. Instead, you can skip ahead to the parts most relevant to you. We’re going to break it into a few segments. In part one, we’ll talk about active duty service members and the benefits associated with active duty deaths. Part two covers the benefits related to military retirees and how those differ, in many cases quite a bit, from active duty. Lastly, we’ll touch on veterans who may not have vested in a military pension or had the full stack of benefits, and what else is available to their surviving spouses.
Wherever you are in this journey, we want to honor and recognize your spouse’s service, and that’s why most of these benefits exist. Some of them go back to the commitment President Lincoln and Congress made after the Civil War to care for those who served and for the spouses and children they leave behind, knowing that the wounds of war and its other impacts can extend long after the uniform comes off. We have the privilege of seeing many of these situations with clients at Wise Stewardship Financial Planning. If something here raises a question we could help with, particularly about the financial planning around these benefits and their impact over your lifetime, it would be our privilege to help. Feel free to reach out on our website, wisestewardshipfp.com.
One of the biggest challenges with this topic is how different things can be between a death that occurs after 25 years of service while still wearing the active duty uniform and a death just a few months later, after the uniform comes off and the service member is a retiree. It can also feel confusing and overwhelming because you’re dealing with many different offices and bureaucratic procedures. You’ve got the Department of Defense, DFAS, and the VA, which don’t always talk to each other, along with other agencies such as Social Security and TRICARE. My goal is for you to walk away pointed toward the right resources, including the show notes and other materials we’ll have for this episode. Wherever you are, take it one small step at a time.
This isn’t meant to be all-inclusive, and not everything we cover will stay accurate in the future. I’m recording this in October 2026, and Congress periodically changes some of these figures, so be sure to verify them, especially if you’re listening or watching much further in the future.
Let’s start with active duty. Two of the biggest benefits here are VA Dependency and Indemnity Compensation, which you’ll hear me refer to frequently as DIC, and the Survivor Benefit Plan, or SBP.
You’ll be assigned a casualty assistance officer, or CAO, though some branches use slightly different terminology. This person is typically your first and primary point of contact as you navigate this. In my experience with dozens of Gold Star widows and surviving spouses walking this road, the experience with a CAO can vary widely. Some are extremely experienced, have done this many times, and have the knowledge, expertise, and bedside manner to walk you through the process. Others are thrown into it, and you might be their very first case. At an appropriate time, it’s worth asking how many of these they’ve done before and what their experience has been, so you can take a trust-but-verify approach.
The CAO walks you through the military side, from funeral protocol to each benefit claim, and keeps you updated throughout. More often than not, those first visits are an overwhelming rush on top of everything else going on at the time. The CAO is meant to be a guide, not an advisor. They help you understand the lay of the land and know which forms need to be filled out and which agencies handle them, but you should still rely on additional resources, ideally a good financial planner and a tax preparer, to help sort things out.
The casualty assistance officer can help verify family information, particularly if there are complicating factors like earlier marriages, divorce decrees, custody orders, or children from other relationships. If you haven’t already, gather documents like your marriage certificate, your children’s birth certificates, and Social Security numbers. The service member’s DD Form 93, also called the vRED, or Virtual Record of Emergency Data, dictates who receives certain benefits, so it shapes how some of this is split early on.
One early question, particularly in higher-profile cases, is whether the media will be involved. The CAO can coordinate media requests or turn them down, along with requests to share your contact information with elected officials and others.
Early in the process is typically when the $100,000 death gratuity is paid. Yes, that’s a terrible name for it, and I wish it were named differently. It’s usually the first benefit paid, within 72 hours of the DD Form 397 being received. SGLI, up to $500,000 depending on how much coverage the service member had, is paid out a little later. We talked about the HEART Act in a season two episode, so listen to that one if you haven’t. Within 12 months of receiving these payouts, you can contribute up to the full $600,000 from the death gratuity and SGLI combined into a Roth IRA. There are many strong reasons to do that, and I won’t repeat them here, but it’s definitely worth considering.
Those are one-time payouts. The next benefits we’ll talk about are ongoing payments that will shape the next 20 or 30 years or more of your lifetime.
First is DIC, a monthly tax-free payment from the VA to the surviving spouse and children of someone whose death is tied to service. We’ll touch on this again when we get to retiree and veteran deaths. When a service member dies on active duty or on active orders, the death is almost always considered service connected. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen it go otherwise. For an active duty death, the VA presumes the connection, so eligibility is automatic and the benefit is paid for life. We’ll talk about how it relates to remarriage, but in short, the benefit continues unless you remarry before age 55. There are a couple of forms, and the CAO can help you complete them with the local VA office. It’s typically filed automatically, but the law states that if you file within twelve months of the death, the VA back pays to the first day of the month of the death.
Here in 2026, the base rate is about $1,700 a month for the surviving spouse. The VA adds about $421 for each child under age 18, plus a transitional benefit of about $360 a month for the first two years when there are dependent children under 18. Because DIC is tax free, it’s worth more than the amount on the check suggests, compared to SBP, which we’ll get to in a minute.
When it comes time to file your taxes, you won’t get a form from the VA. The only time DIC comes into play for taxes is if you itemize deductions in a state without an income tax, such as Texas or Florida. If you itemize medical expenses, property taxes, mortgage interest, charitable giving, and so on, DIC can be factored into the sales tax deduction instead of an income tax deduction. Talk to your tax preparer if that applies to you, and at least make sure they know you’re receiving DIC, even if it doesn’t otherwise affect your taxes.
Now let’s move on to the Survivor Benefit Plan. In plain English, SBP is a Department of Defense annuity. It’s not a VA benefit, and it’s not life insurance. For an active duty death, it’s automatically included, and the service member pays no premiums, which is different from what we’ll discuss for retirees. In words, the formula is 55% of what retired pay would have been had the service member retired on the date of death at a 100% disability rating. The CAO can walk you through the specifics. If the retired pay at that rank and years of service would have been about $4,000 a month, 55% of that is about $2,200 a month. For mid-grade enlisted, we’re seeing SBP payments in the range of $1,600 to $1,800 a month. For a senior officer, it’s much higher, $3,000 a month or more. It depends on years of service and grade at the time of death.
Before 2023, the interaction between DIC and SBP was a big deal, and you may still hear people in the community talk about it, especially those who were collecting benefits long before 2023. DIC used to reduce the SBP check dollar for dollar. That offset was phased out, and for service-connected active duty deaths you now collect both SBP and DIC. Some old resources still floating around, including a Department of Defense survivor benefits guide from around 2019, don’t reflect this. So if you hear people refer to the “widow’s tax,” know that it no longer applies here in 2026 and beyond.
SBP is taxable, while DIC is not, so you’ll receive a 1099-R for SBP at tax time. Most of the time you can have federal and even state taxes withheld from your SBP payments if you choose. In my experience with clients, DIC often starts faster, while SBP can take a few months to get going.
We’ll briefly touch on Social Security, because it’s an eligible benefit even though it isn’t directly tied to military service. Anytime a spouse dies, the surviving spouse is eligible for a one-time lump sum payment of $255. That number has been fixed for a very long time and never adjusted for inflation, which is why it feels so low today. There are also survivor benefits based on dependent children in the home, and survivor benefits you as the surviving spouse can collect. I did an episode on that in season two where you can learn more.
One special note: with a combat zone death, federal income tax liability may be forgiven. If there was a tax bill, a tax lien, or something similar, consult a professional to make sure it’s handled appropriately, either on the 1040 or potentially on an amended 1040-X.
Now that we’ve covered SBP and DIC, let’s talk about housing. Typically you’ll receive a one-year housing bridge, which can come a couple of different ways. If you live in government housing on base, you can stay up to 365 days from the date of death without payment. In my experience, many installations also give the surviving spouse the option to stay longer, with payment set up according to local procedures. If you live off base, you’ll receive a lump sum equal to 365 days of BAH at the service member’s pay grade. That lump sum can be delayed in some circumstances, but DFAS typically pays it fairly quickly.
You’re also entitled to one move at government expense, completed within three years of the date of death. In addition, if your children are enrolled in a Department of Defense school, there are provisions allowing them to stay until they graduate or relocate. Work with your CAO on the specifics. We won’t say much about TRICARE here because we’ll have a separate episode on it, but you’re eligible for TRICARE at the active duty family cost-share rate for three years following the date of death. After that, you move to the retiree family rate.
Commissary and exchange privileges are extended indefinitely, for the rest of your life. Prior to 2024, they were restricted by the remarriage provisions we talked about earlier.
With all of these benefits, the key is understanding the timelines and how they affect the decisions you have to make. Some things have to be done now, typically applying for DIC, SBP, and the life insurance benefits. The housing and other benefits give you some time and space to figure out what’s next.
Now that we’ve covered income, let’s switch gears to education benefits. The biggest decision is whether to take the Fry Scholarship or Chapter 35 DEA benefits. The Fry Scholarship, named for Marine Gunnery Sergeant John David Fry, is the choice the vast majority of our Gold Star clients make, because it’s a slightly more generous benefit. It’s available to you as the surviving spouse and to the children of a service member who died in the line of duty. It pays almost exactly like the Post-9/11 GI Bill: up to 36 months of tuition and fees, a monthly housing allowance equal to the E-5 with dependents BAH rate at the school’s location (or a specific rate for online schooling), and a book stipend. It opens up opportunities at a variety of schools, including private and public schools that participate in the Yellow Ribbon Program, which helps close the gap when tuition is higher than what the benefit covers. For example, if the federal government contributes $2,000 toward a particular expense, a Yellow Ribbon school will often match it. Coordinate with the veterans affairs office, or whoever runs veteran benefits at that school, on the specifics.
As a surviving spouse, you also have the option to decline the Fry Scholarship. Maybe you already received a GI Bill transfer from your spouse during their time on active duty, and you’d now be presented with two education benefits, which you may not want for a variety of reasons. This tends to be very case specific. I’ve recommended declining it once before. The surviving widow already had the GI Bill transfer, there were no children in the picture, and she already had a master’s degree with no intention of going back for another. She was interested in other opportunities where DEA, the Chapter 35 Dependents’ Educational Assistance benefit, made more sense.
DEA is a flat stipend, currently $1,621 a month here in October 2026, paid directly to the student. With the Fry Scholarship and the Post-9/11 GI Bill, tuition and fees go directly to the institution, and the student collects only the housing allowance and the book stipend. DEA is a flat cash payment to you and doesn’t include the same tuition or Yellow Ribbon provisions. There are lower rates for part-time study, and some specifics go beyond what we can cover here. Because this election is irrevocable, you can’t go back and switch later. Depending on your education goals, nine times out of ten the Fry Scholarship will be better unless you have very specific reasons not to choose it. Run the numbers and get good advice on the specifics of your situation.
If your children turned 18 or graduated high school before January 1, 2013, which is unlikely if you’re listening to this podcast, their Fry Scholarship eligibility runs until age 33. For children after that date, there’s no age cap. The VA does cap the combined Fry and DEA benefits, so you’ll need to dig into the details there. For spouses, a recent rule change means there’s no longer a time limit for a surviving spouse to use the Fry Scholarship. However, remarriage still ends eligibility.
Let’s shift gears again and talk about burial honors and how they fit into the overall picture. For an active duty death, the Department of Defense typically pays for the funeral and interment costs, including the casket and transportation. The government also typically provides travel to the service, such as at Arlington National Cemetery, for the spouse, children, siblings, parents, and the person authorized to direct disposition of remains, who is named on the vRED we talked about earlier. The casualty assistance officer will typically help with travel planning, the mortuary officers, the protocol, and much of what’s involved in the specific type of service you choose.
If your service member never updated their DD Form 93, the vRED, federal law has to follow the designation on file. Maybe they named a parent, a friend, or a sibling when they came on active duty and never changed it, even after they married you. This may be something you don’t have the ability to change, so you may need to work with that person. Every time I’ve seen it, it was simply an oversight; the service member didn’t think to go back and change it. The military will provide and arrange funeral honors. If you choose a private arrangement, reimbursement is typically handled through the CAO.
The last point as we wrap up the active duty provisions is the remarriage rule we’ve referenced a few times. Remarriage before age 55 stops DIC, SBP, and the Fry Scholarship. This is where pending legislation called the Love Lives On Act comes in. We talked with a couple of guests about it this season, and I hope Congress will pass it to remove that penalty. If you haven’t heard of it, get your voice involved. Talk to your representatives in Congress to help get the bill out of committee and to a vote, so we can better serve our community.
Now let’s shift from the active duty benefits we’ve covered so far to the retiree benefit system. After a retiree’s death, the system often isn’t going to be as proactive or engaged. If you’re the surviving spouse of a retiree, more often than not, much of what we’ll talk about here will be on you: making the first call, checking which benefits were elected at retirement, and filing within the appropriate deadlines. The active duty process is much more shepherded, with people watching over it, especially the CAO. That’s not always the case here. Help can be available, but it’s often uneven. You may still have access to on-base services, representatives, and support, but more often than not, you’ll be the one who keeps calling and asking.
Typically, the first call is to DFAS to report the death. You’ll need information like your spouse’s Social Security number and the date of death, and potentially the death certificate as well. On that first call, understand that retired pay ends on the date of death. DFAS will stop the payments and typically mail a condolence letter and claim forms within one to two weeks. If you don’t know whether your spouse elected SBP, you shouldn’t have to guess; you can ask on that call. Assuming all the paperwork is in order, the next step is getting you set up to receive the Survivor Benefit Plan payment, which we’ll talk more about in a minute.
Call number two is to the VA, to stop any current VA disability compensation and potentially establish your eligibility for DIC. With both DFAS and the VA, if payments continue because it takes you a little longer to contact them, they will pull back the overpayment, often by ACH. Money may be in your checking account and then suddenly pulled back, because they’re backdating to the date of death.
With the VA specifically, the surviving spouse is entitled to a one-time payment for the month of death. I’ve seen cases where the VA wrongly demanded that money back, took it back by ACH, and only later recognized the error and returned it by Treasury check. So be aware you may see unusual money movements in and out of your checking account if direct deposit was set up there.
Now for SBP. If there’s no annuity to claim, recognize that this may come as a surprise. You as the spouse were required to sign those forms, but with the passage of time, these things can be forgotten. This is where DIC can step in. The SBP amount is a flat 55% of the base amount, which is typically the full retired pay. So if your spouse had been retired for several years and you know the monthly retired pay, you can calculate what the dollar amount will be. In certain cases, though, the retiree and you as the spouse did not elect full SBP coverage. Perhaps a smaller base amount was elected, and less was paid in SBP premiums at retirement. That just means a smaller dollar amount will be paid. DFAS has those figures based on the election made at retirement and should be able to tell you.
One challenge we occasionally see is when a former spouse was named, because only one spouse annuity can be paid. Ask DFAS who is covered, especially if you’re trying to pick up the pieces in a remarriage scenario. As with active duty, the SBP and DIC offset is gone, and SBP is taxable while DIC is not. You’ll get a 1099-R from DFAS for the SBP payments and pay state and federal tax on them as appropriate. You won’t receive any tax correspondence from the VA for DIC.
For retirees, DIC is not presumed the way it is for active duty. For a retiree, the death has to be service connected, so we look at whether the cause of death goes back to something related to service. A common example I see with clients is a death from a heart attack or cancer, where the death certificate lists leukemia as a related condition. We look at the military service record, and if leukemia was a service-connected condition, the death can be service connected. DIC can also be paid if the service member was rated 100% disabled for ten years before death, was rated 100% disabled continuously since release from active duty for at least five years before death, or was a former POW who meets the VA’s requirements. So a retiree rated 100% for ten years who dies of an unrelated cause can still qualify.
There’s also a scenario I haven’t personally seen, but which comes up from time to time, where DIC can still cover a veteran who was entitled to VA compensation but wasn’t receiving it because of military retired pay, including cases involving Combat-Related Special Compensation. In those situations, consult experts and VSOs for the specifics.
There’s an extra provision called the eight-year provision, where an extra $360 a month can be paid if your spouse was rated totally disabled for eight years and you were married for that same eight-year period. One change still rippling through is the recently passed PACT Act, under which a death from a presumptive condition can support DIC, even for deaths that occurred years ago. For instance, many conditions related to service in Vietnam and Agent Orange exposure are now presumed service connected. So even if you’re filing many years after the fact, it’s now a little easier to get some of these claims through.
The deadline is similar to what we discussed in part one: file within a year of the date of death to be paid back to that date. If you file after that point, payments go back only to the date you file. Say your retiree has been gone for three years and you file today. Today’s filing date starts the clock for payments, assuming the death is service connected. This is where an accredited VSO can provide an incredible amount of support. I strongly encourage you to use one as you go through the application to make sure all the T’s are crossed and the I’s are dotted.
For burial honors, the discharge paperwork, the DD214, is the key document to turn in. The funeral director or funeral home can often help walk you through this, especially coordinating honors like a firing party, pallbearers, and flag presentation. A burial flag is always provided free, one per veteran, and a government headstone or marker is also available. You can also request a Presidential Memorial Certificate. If you choose to bury your veteran in a national cemetery, burial is free for eligible veterans, and you’re potentially eligible for burial there as well, even after remarriage.
The Department of Defense does not pay the funeral costs for a retiree. If you choose a private cemetery, the VA allowance is $2,000 if the death is service connected, or about $1,000 for burial and a plot if not. There is a two-year window for non-service-connected claims, so talk to your VSO about the specifics of your circumstance.
It gets a little trickier with Reserve and Guard retirees, so let’s talk about a few of those scenarios. Say your service member was a gray-area retiree, with 20 or more qualifying good years of Reserve or Guard service but not yet drawing retired pay, which typically starts at age 60. In that case, there’s the Reserve Component SBP decision, made ahead of time as option A, B, or C. If your service member chose option A, coverage was declined, so there’s no survivor benefit at all. With option B, it’s deferred, and the annuity starts when your service member would have turned 60. Option C is the highest cost, and sadly it seems to be chosen less often because of that cost, but it’s immediate. The annuity begins right away upon your service member’s death, whatever their age. You as the spouse had to sign off on this decision, but if you can’t remember, DFAS can tell you which option was chosen.
So far we’ve talked about veterans who died on active duty and those who had retiree pensions, whether from active duty or the Reserves. Now let’s talk about a third case that I come across occasionally: your spouse was a veteran but didn’t retire with a pension, and perhaps wasn’t receiving any VA disability compensation at the time of death. There are a few options here, and mostly I want to point you to additional resources. These aren’t cases we’ve historically handled ourselves at Wise Stewardship, and the VSOs we can refer you to, or that you find on your own, can help walk you through them.
One of the first federal benefits surviving spouses may be eligible for is the VA Survivors Pension. In older materials you’ll often see it called the death pension, which is a terrible name, so I’m glad they updated it. It’s an income support program for low-income surviving spouses of wartime veterans. To be eligible, the veteran must have served on active duty, been discharged under conditions other than dishonorable, and served at least one day during a recognized wartime period. It’s always interesting to read through the list. You’ll see the Mexican border period of 1916 and 1917, then World War I, World War II, the Korean conflict, the Vietnam era, and the Gulf War period, which includes the post-9/11 era. Veterans who entered service later generally need at least 24 months of active duty in addition to that one day. A VSO, especially looking at the DD214, can help you determine eligibility.
As the surviving spouse, you must not have remarried, with very narrow exceptions. Because it’s an income support program, it’s need based. The VA caps your net worth, excluding your primary home, one vehicle, and basic personal effects. Here in 2026, the net worth limit is $163,699. So if your brokerage, bank, and retirement accounts add up to more than that, you wouldn’t be eligible. There are some planning considerations, given that the value of a primary home is excluded. Then there’s the income calculation. The VA subtracts your countable annual income from a federally set maximum annual pension rate, and if your income is below the limit, the VA pays the difference in monthly installments. Unreimbursed medical expenses are one example of what can be deducted to lower your countable income. There are also optional add-ons called Aid and Attendance and Housebound. If you as the surviving spouse need daily help with personal care or are confined to your home, the pension ceiling can increase significantly. Again, this is a need-based program rather than one for those with other resources.
Now let’s talk about other benefits you’d be eligible for as a surviving spouse and how they fit together. Burial and memorial benefits are the next one. As long as the veteran was discharged under conditions other than dishonorable, you and the veteran are both entitled to memorial benefits regardless of disability or retirement status. That could be burial in a VA national cemetery, meaning a free grave site, or a columbarium niche for cremated remains in any VA national cemetery with available space. That includes opening and closing of the grave, perpetual care, and a government headstone or marker. Even if the veteran never qualified for a pension or disability, you as the surviving spouse are eligible to be buried alongside them at no cost to your family. There are also military funeral honors, with a detail to fold and present the flag and sound Taps, along with the Presidential Memorial Certificate and the burial flag.
A quick note on how the cash burial allowance works if you or the veteran choose a cemetery other than a VA national cemetery. There’s a direct cash reimbursement process, but it typically requires a service-connected death, receipt of VA compensation, or sometimes a death inside a VA medical facility, so there are additional requirements.
Even if your spouse didn’t have a disability rating at the time of death or during their lifetime, you as the surviving spouse may still have a path to eligibility for DIC, the Dependency and Indemnity Compensation we talked about earlier, particularly if the death can be linked to service after the fact. There are presumptive conditions under the PACT Act, Agent Orange rules, and similar legislation. If a veteran served in certain designated areas, such as Vietnam, Thailand during the Vietnam War, areas around the Persian Gulf and Arabian Gulf, Afghanistan, and post-9/11 combat zones, and died from a condition on the VA’s presumptive list, such as respiratory cancers, glioblastoma, or heart disease, the VA automatically presumes the illness was service connected. We won’t go through the list exhaustively here, but that presumption speeds up the path.
We talked about the DIC dollar amount earlier, but DIC also potentially provides access to CHAMPVA health insurance for you and your dependents. We’ll have a separate episode on that, and you can also look it up online. It also opens up Chapter 35 DEA education assistance. Again, this is where having support from a team or a VSO helps. I’ve seen it happen with clients, both at Wise Stewardship and in some of our pro bono cases, where a review after a death determined that the death was in fact service connected, and DIC was awarded.
That covers the federal level. State-level benefits go far beyond the scope of this podcast, but understand that most states have their own programs, including state veterans cemeteries that may be options beyond the VA national cemeteries. Many states also offer small tax credits or homestead exemptions to offset property taxes for surviving spouses of veterans or wartime veterans. Several states also have state veterans homes, and some allow surviving spouses to enter them when assisted living is available and there’s a financial need. You’ll need to look up the programs for your specific state.
As before, when evaluating these benefits, you’ll want the veteran’s DD214, the record of separation showing the official details of their military service; the death certificate, particularly if the death is related to the service conditions we discussed; and the help of an accredited VSO, which we’ll talk more about in a moment. If this is your situation, or you’re helping somebody through it, you don’t have to figure it out alone, and you shouldn’t.
Be very careful about who you get help from, because there are so many scams when it comes to applying for veterans benefits. If they’re not outright scams, they may be what I’d call spammy. There are claim sharks, people who claim to help, but how they go about it may not be ideal.
So let’s define an accredited VSO, or accredited veterans service officer. This is an individual who is officially vetted, trained, and recognized by the Department of Veterans Affairs to represent veterans, their surviving spouses, and dependents in benefits claims. They work on behalf of congressionally chartered veterans organizations, common ones being the VFW, the American Legion, and Disabled American Veterans, and they also often work for state and county veterans agencies. By federal law, an accredited VSO’s representation must be 100% free. They’re bound by strict ethical standards, subject to oversight by the VA Office of General Counsel, and granted direct access to the VA’s claims systems. Those are the people you want to start with.
There are many unaccredited entities. You’ve probably seen their ads or gotten phone calls and solicitations claiming to help veterans and surviving spouses apply for DIC, pensions, Aid and Attendance, and more. They may call themselves a claims coach or benefits consultant, and they’ll explicitly say they don’t represent you but only guide you through the paperwork, typically for a fee: thousands of dollars up front, or a cut of your retroactive payout, such as five times your monthly increase. There are others we might call pension poachers. They market free help to elderly surviving spouses and then push them into complicated, high-commission products, which can trigger VA penalty look-back periods. They’re not looking out for your best interests and certainly have no fiduciary obligation. Others are claim mills or paid medical networks that refer you out for services and get a kickback based on the number of tests.
The biggest red flag to watch for is anyone demanding up-front fees for an initial application. Federal law prohibits anyone, even accredited attorneys, from charging a fee to help with an initial VA claim, whether for yourself as a veteran or as a surviving spouse. Fees are permitted only for accredited attorneys and claims agents after the VA has issued a decision on the initial claim. So in my opinion, always start with the free process through an accredited VSO. If there’s an initial denial, or a second denial after an appeal, it may then make sense to look at an accredited VA claims attorney or organization and pay them for the extra effort involved.
Another red flag is a company asking for your password so it can log into your account and submit claims as if it were you, hiding from the VA that an unaccredited third party is preparing them. Be wary of contracts asking you to sign over a percentage of your pay, specific guarantees or dollar amounts, or, in the worst cases, benefits directed to third-party accounts they can access.
You can find accredited help through the VA Office of General Counsel accreditation search, the official public database at va.gov/ogc/apps/accreditation. We’ll have a link in the show notes. You can search individuals by name, or search by organization, city, or state, to confirm who does and doesn’t have accreditation. Start there. You can also go through the chartered organizations we mentioned, like the American Legion and DAV. Many times, some of the best resources are your state and county governments. Many counties have veterans service officers who are county employees, paid by the government, providing this service, and that’s often a great place to start.
We’ve talked about a lot of benefits in this episode, and I hope whatever applies to your specific situation has been helpful. If this is you, our hearts go out to you as you grieve and navigate all of this. And for those helping others, thank you for your service on behalf of the veteran and the loved ones they left behind. At Wise Stewardship Financial Planning, it’s our privilege to walk with people through their grief journey and help surviving spouses navigate the what-ifs, particularly those in the Gold Star spouse community.
You can book a free 30-minute consultation on our website so we can chat. If I’m not the right fit, I can help you find another resource, another professional, or a nonprofit that is. It’s our privilege to do that. Visit wisestewardshipfp.com and click one of the links to book an initial consultation, where you’ll see the times available on my calendar. Otherwise, we look forward to having you with us in a future episode. As always, keep on keeping on. You can do this as you go through your grief journey, and it’s our privilege to help. Until next time.
