The 90-day insurance countdown before your ETS date

A six-move checklist keyed to the separation timeline — from inventory at day 90 to the two dates that go on the calendar in ink.

By Lorenzo Marez, Editor · Reviewed against VA.gov source material

You've got an ETS date on the calendar. Here's the insurance countdown that should be running alongside your clearing papers — ninety days, six moves, in order. Screenshot the checklist at the end; this is the video to keep.

Ninety days out: inventory everything. Your SGLI amount and beneficiary designation — verify it's current, because outdated beneficiaries are a silent epidemic. Your spouse's FSGLI if married. TSP beneficiaries while you're in there. Pull a copy of your medical record now, before out-processing chaos — underwriters and VA claims will both want the same history, and you want it in hand, not requested-and-pending.

The health picture

Seventy-five days: get honest about your health picture, on paper. List diagnoses, medications, and anything a doctor has said the word 'monitor' about. This list drives everything downstream — VGLI versus private, which carriers, what timing. It also feeds your VA claim, which you should be building with a VSO in this same window. One health inventory, two uses.

Quotes while covered

Sixty days: get private quotes while still covered. This is the golden window — you're comparing options with zero pressure because SGLI still protects your family. Healthy profile? Compare level term and permanent quotes against VGLI's age-banded curve. Complicated profile? You've just learned VGLI's no-questions conversion is your anchor, and you've learned it with time to spare instead of at day 119.

Decide and execute

Thirty days: decide and execute. If private coverage won, apply now — underwriting takes time, and you want an approved policy in force before SGLI ends, then decline or reduce VGLI from a position of certainty. If VGLI won, calendar the application inside the 240-day no-questions window with margin to spare. If it's the hybrid — VGLI floor now, shop later — lock the floor. The only failing grade is arriving at separation with the decision unmade.

Day 0 and after

Separation day and after: your DD-214 goes in three places — physical safe, digital copy, and one trusted person knows where. It unlocks burial benefits, VA claims, and proof for everything downstream. Then two dates on the calendar in ink: day 120, SGLI ends. Day 240, VGLI's no-questions door closes. Everything in this series about scams applies double in these months — Central Texas's transition population around the region is precisely who the predators dial.

Close

Ninety days, six moves: inventory, health picture, quotes-while-covered, decide, execute, protect the DD-214. Your family's protection shouldn't depend on remembering a briefing slide from months ago. Now it doesn't. It depends on a checklist — and you have it.