Widow battles offsets in survivor benefits

[unhappycamper]

Michelle Fitz-Henry, the widow of a Navy SEAL who died in a 2004 training accident, says military survivor benefits need a dramatic overhaul because the monthly payments don't come close to making up for financial losses in cases like hers.


Widow battles offsets in survivor benefits
By Rick Maze - Staff writer

The widow of a Navy SEAL who died in a 2004 training accident says military survivor benefits need a dramatic overhaul because the monthly payments don’t come close to making up for financial losses in cases like hers.

Michelle Fitz-Henry, an Illinois firefighter and 1991 Persian Gulf War veteran, said her $425 monthly survivor annuity is about 6 percent of the total monthly pay of her late husband, Senior Chief Petty Officer Theodore Fitz-Henry.

Two factors are in play in her situation: how annuities are calculated under the military Survivor Benefit Plan, and the government’s policy of reducing military survivor benefits for those also receiving survivor payments from the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Fitz-Henry said her husband was receiving $6,808 in monthly pay in June 2004, when he was killed at age 41 in a training accident while preparing to deploy to Iraq. Basic pay made up $3,808 of the total, while housing and subsistence allowances came to $2,102. Special pays — diving, parachute and demolition pays and special-duty assignment pay — made up the rest.

Fitz-Henry said her calculation does not include other special pays her husband received in 2004 when he was deployed to Afghanistan.

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Fitz-Henry, an Air Force veteran, said neither she nor her late husband understood that military survivor benefits would be so small.


Rest of article at: http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/benefits/family_resources/military_survivor_071106w/