- The VA is waiving three months of Veterans’ Group Life Insurance (VGLI) premiums — November 2026, December 2026, and January 2027 — for eligible policyholders.
- The break is expected to save more than 457,000 enrolled veterans a collective total of nearly $150 million, an average of about $330 per policyholder.
- Eligibility requires a current VGLI policy that has not lapsed or been cancelled for non-payment; no application is needed and the exemption applies automatically.
- VGLI premiums average about $110 a month nationwide, but range from roughly $30 a month for younger policyholders up to $2,200 a month for the oldest enrollees carrying maximum coverage.
- If you pay through your own bank’s bill-pay service rather than VA AutoPay, you must manually pause and restart that payment yourself or the holiday won’t apply to that transaction.
- VGLI coverage tops out at $500,000, a limit raised from $400,000 in 2023 under the Supporting Families of the Fallen Act.
- What Is the VGLI Premium Holiday?
- Who Qualifies
- How Much You’ll Actually Save
- What You Need to Do Before November 1
- If You Already Paid Ahead
- Understanding VGLI Itself
- Why the VA Can Afford This
- FAQ
For three months this winter, hundreds of thousands of veterans won’t see a VGLI premium bill at all. The Department of Veterans Affairs has confirmed a first-ever premium holiday for the Veterans’ Group Life Insurance program, and the mechanics of who gets it, how much it’s worth, and what could go wrong are more specific than the headline number suggests.
This is a temporary billing pause, not a permanent rate cut, and it comes with a handful of edge cases — advance payments, bank bill-pay services, lapsed policies — that determine whether you actually see the savings show up. Here’s what the announcement covers and what it doesn’t.
What Is the VGLI Premium Holiday?
The Department of Veterans Affairs will save veterans nearly $150 million in insurance premium payments starting in November, when VA implements the first-ever premium holiday for the Veterans’ Group Life Insurance program, with VGLI enrollees not paying insurance premiums for three months, starting in November 2026 and ending in January 2027. The suspension runs on a fixed calendar rather than a rolling three-month window from your enrollment date.
The VA announced it would introduce the first-ever three-month premium holiday for VGLI holders, suspending premiums from November 1, 2026, through January 31, 2027. VA Secretary Doug Collins framed the move plainly: “VA is all about making life better and more affordable for Veterans, and this premium holiday will help the men and women who served this nation keep more of their hard-earned money.”
Coverage itself doesn’t pause. Your term life insurance coverage will remain fully active and unaffected throughout the entire holiday. You’re simply not billed for it during those three months.
Who Qualifies
Eligibility is narrower than “every VGLI policyholder.” VGLI veterans are eligible for the premium holiday if they have a current policy that has not lapsed or been cancelled due to non-payment of premiums. If your policy is in good standing on the trigger date, you’re in.
You are eligible for the Premium Holiday if your VGLI coverage is active on November 1, 2026. If you’ve fallen behind, the VA’s own guidance is direct on this point: if you have a past-due balance, submit your payment as soon as possible to help ensure your coverage remains active. A policy that lapses before November 1 doesn’t get grandfathered back in just because you settle up in December.
Newer enrollees still get a partial benefit. A veteran whose coverage begins in November must make the first payment needed to activate the policy but would then have December and January premiums waived, someone whose coverage starts in December will receive the January break, and coverage beginning on or after January 1, 2027, would not qualify.
How Much You’ll Actually Save
More than 457,000 Veterans participate in the VGLI program, and their monthly premiums vary depending on their age and the amount of insurance coverage they choose. On average, Veterans pay about $110 per month for VGLI coverage and will save an average of $330 during the premium holiday. That average masks a wide range, because VGLI pricing is age-banded and scales sharply with coverage amount.
Payments range from $30 a month for the maximum $500,000 in insurance to $2,200 a month for the maximum coverage for veterans 80 and older. A few concrete examples from the VA’s published rate structure show the spread:
| Age Band | Coverage | Monthly Premium | 3-Month Holiday Savings |
|---|---|---|---|
| 29 or younger | $500,000 | $30 | $90 |
| 40–44 | $250,000 | $35 | $105 |
| 50–54 | $250,000 | $72.50 | $217.50 |
| 60–64 | $500,000 | $425 | $1,275 |
| 70–74 | $100,000 | $215 | $645 |
| 75–79 | $500,000 | $1,925 | $5,775 |
Under the VA’s rates, a 29-or-younger veteran with $500,000 in coverage pays $30 per month for a $90 saving; a veteran aged 40 to 44 with $250,000 of coverage pays $35 a month and saves $105; a 50-to-54-year-old with $250,000 of coverage pays $72.50 a month for $217.50 in total savings; a 60-to-64-year-old carrying the maximum $500,000 policy pays $425 per month and saves $1,275; a 70-to-74-year-old with $100,000 of coverage pays $215 per month for a $645 benefit; and someone 75 to 79 with $500,000 in coverage pays $1,925 a month and could save $5,775. Older veterans carrying high coverage amounts stand to gain far more than the $330 average suggests, since VGLI rates climb every five years as policyholders age.
What You Need to Do Before November 1
For most policyholders, the honest answer is nothing. Veterans will be notified in the coming weeks by letter or email if they are eligible, and eligible VGLI policyholders will automatically be exempted from three months of premium payments. If your premium comes out of your military retirement pay, VA disability compensation, or VA’s own AutoPay system, that deduction simply won’t fire for three billing cycles.
There’s one real exception, and it’s worth flagging because it won’t be obvious until you see a charge you weren’t expecting. Those who use a bill-payment service through their financial institution must discontinue it as of Nov. 1 and restart it as of Feb. 1 to avoid the payments being processed. The holiday lives inside VA’s billing system — your bank has no idea it exists, and it will keep sending your scheduled payment unless you tell it to stop.
If You Already Paid Ahead
Some policyholders pay several months of VGLI premiums in a lump sum, and that group isn’t forgotten. Veterans who have paid in advance through the premium holiday period can either receive a credit on their policy for three months or can ask for a refund. Neither option applies itself; if this describes you, check the VA’s VGLI premium holiday FAQ page or contact the VGLI administrator to specify which you’d prefer.
If you accidentally submit a payment during the November–January window out of habit, that’s also recoverable. Veterans who have paid in advance can either receive a credit on their policy for three months, or they can ask the VA for a refund. The same mechanism covers both prepayment scenarios and accidental in-window payments.
Understanding VGLI Itself
VGLI exists as a bridge for the group life insurance coverage you carry on active duty. VGLI is VA’s term life insurance program that lets Veterans pay a monthly premium to maintain life insurance coverage after they leave the military. Without it, coverage from Servicemembers’ Group Life Insurance (SGLI) doesn’t simply continue on its own. Servicemembers’ Group Life Insurance coverage doesn’t automatically carry over after leaving the military, but everyone leaving the military with SGLI coverage qualifies to sign up for VGLI, with certain time limits.
The program is decades old and covers a large population. Launched in 1974, the VGLI program has more than 457,000 participants, and it offers term life coverage from $10,000 to $500,000, with coverage levels tied to age and to the amount of Servicemembers’ Group Life Insurance a veteran had when leaving uniform. The current $500,000 ceiling isn’t the original maximum. The maximum coverage moved from $400,000 to $500,000 in 2023 after the passage of the Supporting Families of the Fallen Act, legislation that led to the first increase in VGLI maximum coverage since 2005.
Timing matters if you’re applying fresh. Those eligible should receive an application within 45 to 60 days after leaving the service and then have one year and 120 days from their date of separation to apply; those who apply within 240 days of leaving the service can submit their application with the first month’s premium payment and do not need to provide evidence of good health, while those who submit an application after 240 days have to provide proof of good health. Missing that 240-day window can mean a medical underwriting process that some veterans, particularly those with service-connected conditions, may not pass. It’s also worth knowing the tradeoff going in: VGLI is more expensive than SGLI, so experts advise shopping around for other life insurance options.
Why the VA Can Afford This
VGLI isn’t taxpayer-funded in the way most VA benefits are. The self-funded program’s financial performance has been incredibly strong, making the holiday possible. Premiums collected from policyholders fund the program’s payouts and reserves, and when that reserve performs well, the VA has room to return money to enrollees rather than simply banking it.
This isn’t the first time VA has adjusted VGLI pricing based on program performance. In December 2024, the VA announced that more than 3 million veterans, service members, and spouses receiving life insurance from VA’s programs would see a premium discount, with approximately 450,000 VGLI members seeing rates discounted between 2% and 17% depending on age, for an average discount of 11%. That was a permanent rate-table change. This premium holiday is different — a one-time, three-month suspension layered on top of whatever rate you’re already paying, not a change to your ongoing premium once February arrives.
For more details and updates, the VA has directed policyholders to its VGLI program page at va.gov/life-insurance/options-eligibility/vgli and to the dedicated premium holiday FAQ hosted on benefits.va.gov. Veterans researching the coverage increase referenced above can also review the text of the Supporting Families of the Fallen Act through official legislative records.
Frequently Asked Questions
No action is needed on your part before the holiday begins. The VA has said eligible policyholders will be notified automatically by letter or email in the coming weeks, and the premium exemption is applied without any application or request. If your VGLI policy is active and in good standing as of November 1, 2026, you’re covered by the holiday whether or not you’ve received written notice yet. If January comes and goes and you were still billed for all three months, that’s when it’s worth contacting the VGLI administrator directly to sort out the discrepancy.
It will stop automatically. The VA has confirmed that VGLI deductions from military retirement and VA disability compensation payments will be paused for the three-month window, the same as premiums collected through AutoPay. You don’t need to submit any paperwork to pause these deductions; the system is designed to skip the November, December, and January collections for eligible policyholders on its own.
Not quite, and this is the detail most likely to trip people up. If you use a bill-payment service set up through your own bank or credit union, that payment is not connected to VA’s internal billing system, so it won’t be paused automatically. You need to log into your bank’s bill-pay portal and stop the scheduled VGLI payment before November 1, then restart it again before your February payment is due, or the bank will keep sending money on a schedule the VA never asked it to follow.
You’re not out of luck. Veterans who prepaid premiums covering any part of the November through January window can choose between two options: a credit applied to their policy for the following three months, or a refund of the amount already paid. Neither happens automatically just because you prepaid, so check the VGLI premium holiday FAQ page or contact the VGLI office to specify which option you want.
Eligibility depends on your policy status specifically on November 1, 2026. The VA has said the holiday applies to policyholders whose current plan has not lapsed or been cancelled for non-payment of premiums, so a policy that lapsed and was never reinstated generally won’t qualify just because you’re now current. If you’re behind, the safer path is to pay off any past-due balance and get your policy formally reinstated well before the November 1 cutoff so your coverage is active and in good standing when eligibility is determined.
You get a partial break tied to when your coverage actually starts. If your VGLI coverage begins in November, you’ll still need to make the payment required to activate the policy, but December and January premiums are waived. If your coverage starts in December, only January is waived, and coverage that begins on or after January 1, 2027, doesn’t qualify for the holiday at all since the window will have closed.
These are two separate actions. In late 2024, the VA lowered ongoing VGLI premium rates for roughly 450,000 members by an average of about 11 percent, a permanent change to the rate table. This premium holiday is a temporary, one-time suspension of billing for three specific months, layered on top of whatever your current rate already is, and it doesn’t change your monthly premium once the holiday period ends.
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