SGLI Coverage Guide: How Servicemembers' Group Life Insurance Works

Servicemembers' Group Life Insurance (SGLI) is a group term life policy that Congress set up under 38 U.S.C. 1965 to 1980A. VA supervises it, and the Office of Servicemembers' Group Life Insurance (OSGLI), part of Prudential, runs the day-to-day work and pays the claims.

You are covered if at least one of these is true:

• you are on active duty in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Space Force, Marine Corps or Coast Guard,
• you are a commissioned member of NOAA or the U.S. Public Health Service,
• you are a cadet or midshipman at a service academy, or in ROTC,
• you are in the Ready Reserve or National Guard, assigned to a unit with at least 12 scheduled drill periods a year, or
• you volunteered for a mobilization category in the Individual Ready Reserve.

Enrollment is automatic. You are signed up for the full $500,000 the day you become eligible, and you stay there unless you reduce or decline coverage yourself. There is no health screening at enrollment.

One thing SGLI is not: a savings plan. It pays no dividends and has no cash, loan or paid-up value. It also does not shrink with age. As long as you are serving and paying the premium, the amount you chose is the amount that pays.

Effective July 1, 2025, VA cut the SGLI premium from 6 cents to 5 cents per $1,000 of coverage per month. Every SGLI member also pays a flat $1 a month for Traumatic Injury Protection (TSGLI). Both come out of base pay automatically.

Source: https://www.va.gov/life-insurance/options-eligibility/sgli/, effective July 1, 2025.

The price does not change with your age, rank or health. The same cut lowered VGLI premiums by 2% to 17% and FSGLI premiums by 11% to 22%.

You manage SGLI in the SGLI Online Enrollment System (SOES). Here is the process:

1. Sign in to milConnect and select "Manage my SGLI".
2. Choose your coverage amount, from $50,000 up to $500,000 in $50,000 steps, or decline coverage.
3. Name your primary beneficiaries and the share each one gets. Add secondary beneficiaries, who are paid only if the primary beneficiaries die before you do.
4. Review and certify. The change takes effect when SOES records it.

If SOES is not available to you, use paper form SGLV 8286, the SGLI Election and Certificate, through your personnel office.

You can name anyone as a beneficiary: a spouse, a child, a parent, a friend, a trust or your estate. If you are married and name someone other than your spouse or children, the Department of Defense must notify your spouse in writing.

Watch out: If you name no beneficiary, 38 CFR 9.5 pays by law in this order: surviving spouse, then children in equal shares, then parents, then your executor, then next of kin. A form that still names an ex-spouse pays the ex-spouse. Check SOES after every marriage, divorce or birth.

Traumatic Injury Protection (TSGLI) is bundled with SGLI for that $1 a month. It pays a lump sum of $25,000 to $100,000 to you, not your family, when you suffer a scheduled loss from a traumatic injury. You must have had SGLI on the day of the injury, survive at least 7 days, and suffer the loss within 2 years (730 days) of the injury.

Source: https://www.benefits.va.gov/insurance/tsgli_schedule_Schedule.asp, effective April 14, 2023 schedule.

The most VA will pay for losses from a single traumatic event is $100,000. Injuries from self-harm, illegal drug use, the complications of medical treatment, or an illness do not qualify. You apply with SGLV 8600, sent to your service branch. Injuries suffered between October 7, 2001 and November 30, 2005 can still be claimed retroactively, no matter where you were injured.

Guard and Reserve members assigned to a unit with 12 or more scheduled drill periods a year get full-time SGLI. That is the same coverage as active duty: 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, with the same premium taken from drill pay.

Reserve members who do not meet the drill requirement get part-time SGLI. Part-time coverage protects you only during the actual days of duty and while traveling directly to and from it. It is a narrower benefit, and it does not carry the standard 120-day tail. One exception: if you are injured or disabled during covered duty and that makes you uninsurable at standard rates, coverage continues for 120 days after that duty period and you may apply for VGLI.

Family coverage follows the member's status. Only full-time SGLI members can enroll a spouse or child in Family SGLI.

SGLI is tied to your service, so separation and retirement start a clock. The day you leave, your coverage continues free for 120 days. Nothing is deducted and nothing needs to be filed. On day 121 it ends unless you have replaced it.

You have 3 ways to replace it:

• Convert to VGLI. Veterans' Group Life Insurance (VGLI) lets you keep up to the SGLI amount you had at separation, from $10,000 to $500,000. You must apply within 1 year and 120 days. If you apply within 240 days, no health questions are asked; after that, you must show good health. Under the July 1, 2025 rates, $500,000 costs $30 a month if you are 29 or younger. The full table and the steps are in the VGLI conversion options guide.
• Convert to a permanent commercial policy. Within 120 days you can convert SGLI to a whole life policy with a participating insurer at standard rates, with no proof of health. Term, variable and universal policies are excluded.
• Apply for VALife. If you have a service-connected rating, Veterans Affairs Life Insurance (VALife) is guaranteed-acceptance whole life up to $40,000 with no deadline. It has a 2-year waiting period, so it is not a drop-in replacement on day 121.

Watch out: VGLI cannot exceed the SGLI amount you carried on your last day of service. If you reduced SGLI to save a few dollars while serving, that lower number becomes your VGLI ceiling. Check SOES before you separate, not after.

Retirees are treated the same as anyone else who separates; there is no retiree SGLI. The "coverage ends at 60" rule you may have read belongs to other group plans, not SGLI. SGLI ends when service ends, and VGLI's age-60 limit applies only to adding coverage.

If you are totally disabled on the day you separate, you can keep SGLI free for up to 2 years through the SGLI Disability Extension. "Totally disabled" means a disability that keeps you from holding gainful employment, or one of the statutory losses: total hearing loss, total loss of speech, or permanent loss of use of your hands, feet or eyes.

Apply with SGLV 8715, the Application for the SGLI Disability Extension, sent to OSGLI. The extension is free and lasts as long as you stay totally disabled, up to 2 years, and never less than 120 days. At the end of the extension your coverage can be converted automatically to VGLI with no health review, as long as you pay the VGLI premiums on time. If the disability is the result of service, the VA disability guide explains how to file a compensation claim in the same period.

A death claim goes to OSGLI, not to a VA regional office:

1. Notify the member's unit or, after separation, call OSGLI at 1-800-419-1473, Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. ET.
2. The branch of service completes its part of SGLV 8283, the Claim for Death Benefits. Each named beneficiary completes their own claim.
3. Send the form to OSGLI at the address on the form. For a death on active duty, the branch supplies proof of death and the family does not need to. For a death after separation, include a certified copy of the death certificate and a copy of the DD Form 214.
4. Choose how to be paid: a lump-sum check, or an Alliance Account, which is an interest-bearing draft account in the beneficiary's name with no monthly fees, from which money can be drawn at any time.

If the member is alive but terminally ill, up to 50% of the face value can be paid early under the accelerated benefit. It needs a physician's written prognosis of 9 months or less to live and form SGLV 8284. The rest of the coverage is paid to the beneficiaries later. SGLI proceeds sit alongside the other VA benefits a family can claim, which are covered in the survivor benefits guide and the veteran family member programs guide.

The 120-day tail is the decision window. The 4 options compare like this:

Source: https://www.va.gov/life-insurance/options-eligibility/vgli/ and https://www.va.gov/life-insurance/options-eligibility/valife/, effective July 1, 2025.

Two questions decide it. First, could you pass private underwriting? If a condition from service would raise your rate or get you declined, VGLI inside the 240-day window is the guaranteed answer, and VALife adds permanent coverage if you have a rating. Second, how long do you need the coverage? A healthy veteran in their 20s or 30s who wants 20 or 30 years of protection will usually pay less for private level term than for VGLI over the same years, because VGLI's premium steps up every 5 years.

Many veterans do both: apply for VGLI in the 240-day window so nothing lapses, then replace it once a private policy is issued. The supplemental coverage options guide shows how veterans layer policies, and the VA life insurance guide compares all 5 VA programs.

SGLI is federal and identical in every state. What varies is what your state pays a service member's family on top of it: many states offer a death gratuity or burial allowance for a member who dies on active duty, and some states buy their own group life coverage for National Guard members on state orders, which SGLI does not cover. Choose your state to see what applies.