Changing Benefit Allocations When a Dependent Dies

The Colmery Act provides enhanced transfer benefits for sponsors and dependents. If a dependent passes away with unused allocated benefits, as a sponsor you can use the TEB page to transfer those benefits to other eligible dependents. Dependents who have passed away are marked (CM) for Colmery Member. Dependents who are eligible to receive transferred benefits from a Colmery Member are marked (CE) for Colmery Eligible.

When you are viewing the TEB page, a message is displayed beneath your sponsor information indicating that your request has enhanced eligibility under the Colmery Act. After all Colmery-eligible months have been reallocated to CE dependents, the message changes to indicate that the Colmery transfer is complete.

To transfer allocated benefits when a dependent passes away:

Locate your dependent with the unused Colmery benefits. This dependent shows the label (CM) for Colmery Member.(CM) in the Relation column indicates that the dependent Colmery Member has been reported as passed away in DEERS. You can transfer unused months from this dependent to dependents marked eligible in the table. Dependents who have enhanced eligibility under the Colmery Act are marked (CE), or Colmery Eligible, in the table.
Scan your list of family members to ensure that you have dependents who are eligible to receive benefits.
In the Months column for your CM, select the allocated months and then reduce the number to reflect what you want to transfer to eligible dependents.
- For example, if your CM has 15 months available and you want to transfer 10 of them to an eligible dependent, change the number of CM Months to 5.
- If you want to transfer all 15 of the CM months, change the CM Months to 0.
In the Months column for a CE dependent, enter the number of months you want to transfer to that dependent.
Transfer available CM months to other dependents if you want.
Click Submit Request to record changes. A warning message may display indicating that you must transfer remaining benefits before you separate from the Armed Forces, along with the number of eligible dependents.
Click OK to close any warning messages.
- You do not need to transfer all months allocated to a CM in a single transaction. However, the total number of months reduced from a CM must equal the months you allocate to eligible dependents in each transaction.