SF 2821: The Agency Certification Form That Controls Your FEGLI Claim

What SF 2821 Is

Standard Form 2821 — Agency Certification of Insurance Status — is the form the deceased employee's agency HR office completes and sends to OFEGLI (the Office of Federal Employees' Group Life Insurance, administered by MetLife). It certifies:

• Which FEGLI coverage tiers the employee was enrolled in (Basic, Option A, B, C)
• The employee's annual basic pay rate at the time of death
• The employee's date of birth and age at death
• Whether the death was accidental
• The employee's last day in pay status

This information determines the FEGLI payout amount. Without SF 2821, OFEGLI has no verified basis to calculate or release the life insurance proceeds.

You Do Not File SF 2821 Yourself

SF 2821 is an agency-to-insurer form. The surviving family member's role is filing Form FE-6 (the beneficiary claim) directly with OFEGLI. The employing agency prepares SF 2821 on its own and transmits it to OFEGLI separately.

The problem is that nobody tells you when this happens — or whether it has happened at all. Agency HR offices handle SF 2821 as part of their death-in-service administrative duties, but there is no confirmation sent to the family. If the agency is slow, understaffed, or loses the paperwork in a transition, the FEGLI claim sits at OFEGLI waiting for certification that never arrives.

Why SF 2821 Delays Happen

Three common scenarios stall SF 2821:

Agency HR backlog. Large agencies process hundreds of personnel actions. A death-in-service triggers multiple forms — SF 2821 to OFEGLI, SF 3100 to OPM, final payroll actions — and a busy HR office may take weeks to complete all of them.

Transferred employees. If the employee recently transferred between agencies, the gaining agency may not have the complete personnel folder. SF 2821 requires coverage and salary data that the gaining HR office may need to request from the losing agency or the National Personnel Records Center.

Dual-status employees. Military technicians, Postal Service employees with unique appointment types, and employees on intermittent schedules can have coverage complications that delay the certification.

How to Confirm SF 2821 Was Submitted

Two weeks after the death, call the agency HR benefits specialist who was assigned to the case and ask directly: has SF 2821 been sent to OFEGLI? If it has, ask for the date it was mailed or transmitted. If it has not, ask what is needed to complete it and whether there is a timeline.

You can also call OFEGLI at 1-800-633-4542 and ask whether they have received the agency certification for the deceased employee's claim. OFEGLI can tell you whether they have FE-6 on file, whether they have SF 2821, and what is still needed to process the claim.

What SF 2821 Determines

The form's salary and coverage data directly feeds the FEGLI payout calculation:

• Basic coverage: annual pay rounded up to the next $1,000, plus $2,000 — certified by the salary figure on SF 2821
• Extra Benefit multiplier: based on the employee's age at death, also from SF 2821
• Option B multiples: the number of multiples the employee elected, verified against enrollment records
• Accidental death determination: if SF 2821 certifies the death as accidental, the Basic benefit and Option A benefit each double

An error on SF 2821 — wrong salary, wrong coverage tier, missing accidental death certification — results in an incorrect payout. If you know the employee's coverage elections (from pay stubs or the employee's personal records), compare them against what OFEGLI reports when the claim is processed.

SF 2821 vs. Other Agency Forms

SF 2821 goes to OFEGLI for the FEGLI claim. It is separate from:

• SF 3100 — the agency certification that goes to OPM for the FERS death benefit and survivor annuity
• SF 1153 — the claim for unpaid compensation that goes to the agency payroll office
• Form FE-6 — the beneficiary claim form that the survivor files directly with OFEGLI

All four are triggered by the same event, but they go to different offices and serve different purposes.

For the full sequence of every form — including which ones the agency handles and which ones you file yourself — the Federal Employee Death Benefits Claims Guide maps out the complete workflow across all six benefit channels.

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