Paid-up SBP became effective October 1, 2008. In the future, all retirees that are at least 70 years of age and have paid SBP premiums for at least 360 months (30 years) will have their premiums stopped and are no longer required to make monthly payments beginning in the month they meet the eligibility requirements. The same policy also applies to participants in the Retired Serviceman's Family Protection Plan (RSFPP).

To proactively ease the process of tracking each retiree's paid-up status, Retiree Account Statements (RAS) have been modified to include a "premium counter." The purpose of the counter is to track the number of months of paid premiums credited to a retiree's account. The premium counter will automatically increase each month that a full premium payment is made. This will help retirees monitor their eligibility status. A RAS is issued only when a pay change occurs.

Beginning on January 1, 2009, retirees who believed that their premium counter was incorrect were given the opportunity to dispute it by completing and submitting a DD Form 2656-11. The utilization of DD Form 2656-11 expired on June 30, 2009. . If we receive a form postmarked on or before June 30, 2009, and we find that we need additional documentation, retirees will have 30 days to submit that documentation and our Retired and Annuity Pay Operations will be given an additional 30 days to properly process the account.

Throughout the Paid-up SBP dispute period:

**3,998 DD 2656-11 forms were received
**1,416 forms, or 35%, required adjustments to their SBP premium counters
**669, or 47%, of the adjusted counters (17% of all forms received) were increased
**747, or 53%, of the adjusted counters (1919% of all forms received) were decreased
**2,582, or 65%, of the forms received required no change to their SBP premium counters

Any forms received postmarked AFTER June 30, 2009 will not be honored.

Again, thank you for providing Retired and Annuity Pay with an opportunity to better serve you.