Request for Waiver of Overpayments

A Federal employee appealed the denial of his request for the waiver of optional life insurance premiums. The employee had elected optional life insurance coverage under the Federal Employees Group Life Insurance Program (FEGLI). However, due to an administrative error, the appropriate deductions from his pay were not made. The Claims Division based the denial of the employee's waiver upon the fact that he could have uncovered the administrative errors by examining his earnings statements. Therefore, he was held to be at least partially at fault for the undetected error. In his appeal, the employee contended that the earnings statements did not separate the deductions for the optional and the regular FEGLI coverage. GAO held that the employee's earnings statements clearly indicated the amount which was being deducted per pay period, and if the employee had examined the earnings statements and compared the amount deducted with the actual cost of the optional insurance coverage, he would have discovered the error. Therefore, the employee was at least partly at fault for failing to notice the error, and waiver was precluded by law. Additionally, it should be noted that the employee's beneficiary would have recovered his optional insurance had he died during the period after he had elected that insurance although no premium payments were deducted. Therefore, it was not unfair to require the employee to pay for the insurance protection provided. Accordingly, the denial of the requested waiver was affirmed.