WASHINGTON – Some Veterans covered under the Veterans Group Life Insurance program (VGLI) now have the opportunity to increase their coverage to the current maximum coverage under the Servicemembers’ Group Life Insurance (SGLI) program.

“Currently, 70 percent of the Veterans covered under VGLI are under age 60, have less than $400,000 of coverage, and will greatly benefit from this law change,” said Allison A. Hickey, Department of Veterans Affairs under secretary for benefits.

Under the Veterans’ Benefits Act of 2010, enacted on Oct. 13, 2010, Veterans can increase their coverage by $25,000 at each five-year anniversary date of their policy to the current legislated maximum SGLI coverage, presently, $400,000.

To date, approximately 21 percent of eligible Veterans have taken advantage of this opportunity, resulting in nearly $113 million of new coverage being issued.

The VGLI program allows newly discharged Veterans to convert their SGLI coverage they had while in the service to a civilian program. Before enactment of this law, Veterans could not have more VGLI than the amount of SGLI they had at the time of separation from service.

For example, those who got out of the service prior to Sept. 1, 2005, when the maximum SGLI coverage was $250,000, were limited to $250,000 in VGLI coverage.

Now on their first five-year anniversary, these Veterans can elect to increase their coverage to $275,000. On their next five-year anniversary, they can increase the coverage to $300,000, and so forth.

The additional coverage can be issued regardless of the Veteran’s health. To be eligible to purchase this additional coverage, the Veteran must:

• Have active VGLI coverage,
• Have less than the current legislated maximum coverage of $400,000,
• Request the additional coverage during the 120-day period prior to each five-year anniversary date, and
• Be less than 60 years of age on the five-year anniversary date of his or her coverage.

Eligible Veterans are notified of this opportunity a week before the start of the 120-day period prior to their anniversary date, and twice more before the actual anniversary date.

For more information about VA’s Insurance Program or other VA benefits, go to www.va.gov or call 1-800-827-1000. Veterans are also encouraged to visit VA’s web portal eBenefits – Insurance.

Washington, D.C., Nov. 7, 2011—Today at the White House, AMVETS National Commander Gary Fry and Executive Director Stewart Hickey along with other veterans service organization leaders, joined President Obama as he announced his support for the Returning Heroes and Wounded Warrior Tax Credits – two provisions in the American Jobs Act Congress is scheduled to consider this week. The Returning Heroes Tax Credit provides firms that hire unemployed veterans with a maximum credit of $5,600 per veteran, while the Wounded Warriors Tax Credit offers firms that hire veterans with service-connected disabilities a maximum credit of $9,600 per veteran.

The President also announced a series of executive actions that will provide new resources for veterans to translate military experience to the private sector job market, give veterans additional career development support, and better identify companies looking to hire veterans. These initiatives include:

Veteran Gold Card: Effective today, post-9/11 veterans will be able to visit dol.gov/vets/goldcard.html to download the Veteran Gold Card, which entitles them to enhanced services including six months of personalized case management, assessments and counseling, at the roughly 3,000 One-Stop Career Centers located across the country. This should help serve the more than 200,000 unemployed post-9/11 veterans. The President directed the Department of Labor to launch this initiative in his August 4, 2011 speech at the Navy Yard.

My Next Move for Veterans: The Department of Labor will launch My Next Move for Veterans (mynextmove.org/vets), a new online resource that allows veterans to enter their military occupation code and discover civilian occupations for which they are well qualified. The site will also include information about salaries, apprenticeships, and other related education and training programs.

Creating a Veterans Job Bank: Today, the Administration launched the Veterans Jobs Bank, at National Resource Directory (NRD.gov), an easy to use tool to help veterans find job postings from companies looking to hire them. It already searches over 500,000 job postings and continues to grow. Additionally, in a few easy steps, companies looking to hire veterans can make sure the job postings on their own Web sites are part of this Veterans Jobs Bank.

These initiatives could not have come at a more critical time. Troops are returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan only to face an intimidating national unemployment rate of 9 percent, and 12.1 percent unemployment rate for Iraq- and Afghanistan-era veterans who left active duty since 2001. Assistance is crucial, and together, these initiatives and tax credits will lower veteran unemployment by increasing hiring, improving resources for veterans to translate their military skills for the civilian workforce, and providing veterans with new tools to aid their search for jobs.

“AMVETS urges Congress to pass this legislation so that our Warriors will have one less war to fight when they make the inevitable transition from warfighter to civilian employee, be it now, or sometime in the future,” said AMVETS National Commander Gary L. Fry, who attended the White House briefing Monday morning.

In October, AMVETS, with support from Activision Blizzard Entertainment Call of Duty Endowment, expanded its own Career Center program consisting of more than 60 centers in Ohio, adding eight new locations in new states nationwide, including California, Iowa, Maryland, New Jersey, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania. Additional sites are under consideration for late 2011 and early 2012.

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Fourteen AMVETS leaders from across the country met at AMVETS Career Center (ACC) headquarters Wednesday, October 12th in Columbus to discuss the building and establishment of veterans’ career centers in eight states.
A $100,000 grant given to AMVETS National this year by the Call of Duty Endowment (CODE) is making possible the creation of these new career centers, which are slated to be up and running by the end of this year. CODE is a nonprofit organization of video game company, Activision Blizzard, which focuses its resources on assisting organizations that provide job placement and training to veterans. Activision Blizzard is the publisher of popular video games such as Call of Duty, Guitar Hero and the Tony Hawk series. The grant will provide AMVETS posts funding for operational costs of the career centers, including veterans’ job training and certification. States the centers will be created in are California, Missouri, Iowa, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, North Carolina and Maryland.
AMVETS leaders from these states and Ohio assembled in Columbus to collaborate with one another on how to establish and run successful veterans’ career centers in their respective areas. Ohio is currently the only state that houses AMVETS career centers, of which there are approximately 60+ locations statewide. ACC Director, Len Proper, led the meeting and spoke about his experiences overseeing the development and running of Ohio’s ACC sites.
The first AMVETS career center opened its doors in Columbus, Ohio in December, 2000. Since then, the organization has helped 6,000+ veterans and assisted over 1,300 veterans this year alone. It is success rates such as these that caught the attention of the Call of Duty Endowment and ignited the push for replication in other states.
“Having AMVETS career centers all across the country has always been a dream of mine. I’m very proud of the success we’ve accomplished with our centers here in Ohio and I will do my best to see that the new centers achieve similar success. This grant is a great opportunity for AMVETS to reach out and help more veterans gain employment and we’re very happy to be a part of this movement,” says Proper.

We are making the PA AMVETS Headquarters Web Site as user friendly as possible. It is a good time to update the Web Site. As the changes are being made at HQ., the information will be copied to me and I will make changes to the Site. We will ask for input from the PA AMVETS Members. Of particular interest is Convention Photos, Department Post Web Site links, News, Events etc. Information can be sent directly to the Department HQ.

Department Headquarters
paamvets@yahoo.com

Webmaster Steven Ryersbach
steven.ryersbach@hotmail.com

Being A Veteran Is A Lifetime Appointment

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