§1437 Payment of Annuity

Summary

An annuity starts on the first day of the month when the person whose pay provides the annuity dies, unless other rules below apply. Payments come in equal monthly amounts and must be paid by the 15th day of the next month. No annuity is paid for any month after entitlement stops. If the monthly amount is not a whole dollar, it is rounded down to the next lower whole dollar. An eligible child (a child who can get the annuity, not including a child who was disabled before age 18) who is at least 18 and in full-time school has special start rules: if the child turned 18 in the same month or an earlier month as the member’s death, the annuity starts the month of the death; if the member died earlier and the child turns 18 later, it starts the month the child turns 18; if both events happened earlier and the child later becomes eligible again, it starts the month the child becomes eligible again. No such child annuity is payable for any month before November 1, 1968. If a beneficiary asks, the Secretary may treat a member who has been missing at least 30 days and whose circumstances make death likely as presumed dead, using the Secretary’s rules. If so, annuity payments are made as if the member died when the retired or retainer pay was suspended. If the member is later found alive, payments stop and the amounts paid become a debt to the United States that can be taken from the member’s pay, VA compensation, or other U.S. payments. If the member dies before the debt is fully recovered, the remaining amount may be collected from the beneficiary who received the payments.