Annuitant Indicator Codes are the numeric classifications the Office of Personnel Management attaches to every person on the federal retirement rolls under CSRS or FERS. The code is not a dollar amount and usually does not appear on your monthly statement, but it controls what OPM’s systems allow you to do: whether your Federal Employees Health Benefits enrollment continues, how your Federal Employees’ Group Life Insurance changes at 65, whether your payments can be suspended, and whether a survivor can inherit your coverage. If your benefits ever behave differently than you expected, the code on your record is one of the first places to look.
The Four Codes Most Retirees Encounter
OPM uses several numeric indicators, but four cover the great majority of people drawing a federal retirement benefit. Each one points the payment system toward a different set of rules.1Office of Personnel Management. Appendix H – Retirement Data Valid Values, Guide to Retirement Data Reporting
- Code 1 is the standard retired employee. You met the age and service requirements and are drawing an earned annuity based on your own federal career.
- Code 2 is a survivor annuitant. You are a surviving spouse or eligible child receiving a monthly benefit based on someone else’s federal service, and your rights flow from that deceased person’s elections rather than your own.
- Code 5 is a disability retiree. OPM approved your annuity because you could no longer perform your job duties, and the code carries ongoing obligations that the other classifications do not.
- Code 8 is a suspended annuity. Your payments have been paused, most commonly because you returned to federal employment or did not submit required documentation. In many cases you remain an annuitant even while the money stops.
Other codes exist for less common situations. But whether your coverage continues, changes, or ends usually comes down to which of these four categories OPM has placed you in.
What Code 1 Means for Your Health and Life Insurance
The Five-Year FEHB Rule
A Code 1 retiree can keep FEHB into retirement only if enrolled in an FEHB plan, or covered as a family member under someone else’s plan, for the five years of service immediately before the annuity begins. If your total federal service was shorter than five years, you need continuous enrollment for the whole eligible period.2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 5 USC 8905 – Election of Coverage If you were not enrolled at retirement, you cannot enroll later.3OPM. Federal Employees Health Benefits Program – Thinking About Retiring
Once you meet the rule, you keep your enrollment at the same government contribution rate as active employees, with your share deducted from each annuity payment.4U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Premiums
FEGLI and the Post-65 Reduction Choice
The same five-year concept applies to FEGLI. To carry Basic insurance or any Optional coverage into retirement, you must have been insured for that specific coverage during the five years of service immediately before retirement, or the full period of eligibility if shorter.5eCFR. 5 CFR 870.701 – Eligibility for Life Insurance6Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 5 USC 8706 – Termination of Insurance; Assignment of Ownership of Insurance Accidental death and dismemberment coverage ends at retirement regardless of how long you held it.
At retirement you also choose how your Basic coverage will change once you turn 65 or retire, whichever is later. There are three options.7U.S. Office of Personnel Management. What Will Happen to My FEGLI Basic Life Insurance When I Retire
- The 75% reduction. Coverage drops by 2% of the original face value each month until 25% remains. You pay nothing for Basic insurance after reductions begin.
- The 50% reduction. Coverage drops by 1% per month until 50% remains, and you pay an extra premium for life.
- No reduction. Coverage stays at the full amount you had as an employee, with a larger extra premium indefinitely.
You can move down later, from no reduction or 50% to 75%. You cannot move up. Most retirees pick the 75% option because the premiums end, but if the death benefit is doing real work in an estate plan, run the numbers before defaulting to it.
What Code 2 Means for a Surviving Spouse or Child
A Code 2 survivor can continue FEHB only if two things were true when the annuitant died: the deceased was enrolled in Self Plus One or Self and Family coverage that actually included the survivor, and the survivor is entitled to a monthly annuity.8Federal Register. Post-DOMA Survivor Annuitant Federal Employees Health Benefit Waiver Criteria If the retiree carried Self Only, there is no enrollment to inherit, no matter how long the marriage lasted.
When a Code 2 survivor is the only remaining person on the plan, OPM converts the enrollment to Self Only. The premium share is the same as any other annuitant pays, but the survivor faces one hard rule: voluntarily dropping FEHB is essentially permanent. A Code 2 survivor who cancels cannot re-enroll during a later open season the way an active employee or a Code 1 retiree could.
Remarriage adds another layer. For a former-spouse survivor annuity, remarriage before age 55 terminates the annuity itself, and the FEHB eligibility tied to it ends with it.9U.S. Office of Personnel Management. CSRS FERS Handbook Chapter 74 The annuity generally cannot be reinstated even if that later marriage ends. FEHB may still be recoverable in some cases: a survivor covered under FEHB immediately before remarrying whose later marriage ends can request re-enrollment within 60 days after OPM mails a notice of eligibility, with a certified copy of the death certificate or court order.10eCFR. 5 CFR 890.306 – When Can Annuitants or Survivor Annuitants Change Enrollment or Reenroll and What Are the Effective Dates
FEGLI works differently for survivors. Basic insurance and Options A and B pay out as a lump-sum death benefit and end. Option C, which insures the lives of a spouse and eligible children rather than the retiree, is the exception. If the deceased Code 1 annuitant carried Option C at retirement, a Code 2 survivor can continue it for remaining eligible family members.11eCFR. 5 CFR Part 870 – Federal Employees’ Group Life Insurance Program The survivor cannot add new coverages or raise the Option C level. Only what was already in place carries forward.
What Code 5 Requires From Disability Retirees
Code 5 comes with obligations no other classification carries. Until you turn 60, OPM monitors your earned income each year through a survey. If your wages or self-employment income reach 80% of the current pay rate for the position you held when you retired, OPM treats your earning capacity as restored and terminates the annuity 180 days after the end of that calendar year.12Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 5 USC 8337 – Disability Retirement13Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 5 USC 8455 – Recovery; Restoration of Earning Capacity
The 80% figure is not a fixed dollar amount. It is recalculated each year against the current federal pay scale for your former position, so it moves with pay adjustments. If your annuity is terminated because of earnings and you are not reemployed in federal service, it can be restored in the first year your income drops back below the threshold. After age 60, the income monitoring stops and you can earn without limit.
Losing a disability annuity is not just a loss of monthly income. Because FEHB and FEGLI ride on annuitant status, both can end when the annuity does. Code 5 retirees who take on private-sector work without tracking the threshold most often discover the problem after coverage has already been cut.
What Code 8 Means and When You Might See It
Code 8 reflects a suspension of payments. Reemployment in federal service is the most common cause: for most CSRS retirees, accepting a non-intermittent federal position stops the annuity while preserving annuitant status, which is what Code 8 records. FERS retirees generally keep receiving their annuity during reemployment, with the annuity offset by the pay from the new position, though rules vary by appointment type.14eCFR. 5 CFR Part 837 – Reemployment of Annuitants
The distinction between suspension and termination matters. A suspended annuitant still has annuitant status, so FEHB and FEGLI can continue. Termination is rarer and more severe: a disability annuitant already found recovered before reemployment loses both payments and annuitant status, and under CSRS an involuntary retiree returning to a CSRS-covered position also faces termination.14eCFR. 5 CFR Part 837 – Reemployment of Annuitants
If your new position offers FEHB eligibility and you do not waive premium conversion, your enrollment transfers to the employing agency, which handles the government share and deducts your premiums pre-tax like any active employee. If you waive premium conversion, FEHB stays on your annuity record and you continue paying as a retiree.15eCFR. 5 CFR Part 892 – Federal Flexible Benefits Plan: Pre-Tax Payment of Health Benefits Premiums
Paying FEHB When the Annuity Cannot Cover the Premium
A suspended annuity, or one too small to cover the FEHB premium, does not automatically end your coverage. OPM gives you two paths: switch to a plan whose premium fits inside your annuity, or pay premiums directly to the retirement system on the schedule OPM sends you.16U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Annuitants Miss a direct payment and OPM sends a written notice; miss the deadline in that notice and OPM terminates enrollment retroactively to the last period you paid for. Reinstatement after termination for nonpayment is limited to situations where you can show the missed payment was beyond your control and file a written request within 30 days.
How to Check or Correct Your Code
Your Annuitant Indicator Code will not usually appear on your annuity statement in any obvious form. Most retirees never look it up. Problems tend to surface only when a benefit change is denied, an enrollment fails to transfer, or a premium deduction comes out wrong.
To verify your code or ask for a correction, contact OPM Retirement Services. The fastest routes are the online help portal and the phone line at 1-888-767-6738 (TTY: 711), open Monday through Friday, 7:40 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Eastern. Written inquiries go to the Retirement Operations Center, U.S. Office of Personnel Management, Post Office Box 45, Boyers, PA 16017, and must include your full name, phone number, email address, claim number, and signature.17U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Contact OPM Retirement Services
If a coding error has already cost you coverage or triggered incorrect premiums, build a paper trail. Keep the enrollment forms you submitted, note dates, and preserve any correspondence. OPM has authority to waive certain enrollment requirements when it would be inequitable to enforce them, but that relief depends on being able to show the mistake was not yours.2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 5 USC 8905 – Election of Coverage