Your SGLI Ends 120 Days After You Separate: The VGLI Deadlines That Decide Whether You're Insurable

Quick answer: Your SGLI keeps running free for 120 days after you leave the military, then stops. Veterans' Group Life Insurance (VGLI) is the conversion path, and it has two separate deadlines that people mix up constantly. Apply within 240 days of separation and VA does not ask for proof of good health. Apply after that and you have to submit evidence of good health — which is exactly the test a veteran with service-connected conditions is most likely to fail. The absolute final deadline is 1 year and 120 days after separation, after which you cannot apply at all. If you take one number out of this post, take 240.

This is one of the quietest failure modes in the whole separation process. Nobody chases you about it. There is no final-out signature block for it. Your SGLI just keeps working for four months after you take off the uniform, which makes it feel handled, and then one day it isn't. And unlike most transition deadlines — where missing the window means a delay, a resubmission, or an annoying phone call — missing this one removes an option permanently.

So let's go through it in order: what SGLI is, when exactly it stops, what VGLI is, what the two deadlines actually do, and the honest comparison against buying commercial term life instead.

What SGLI Is and What It Costs You Right Now

Servicemembers' Group Life Insurance (SGLI) is the group term life coverage you have been carrying, probably without thinking about it, since your first duty station. Per VA's SGLI page:

• Coverage is issued in $50,000 increments, up to a $500,000 maximum.
• The basic premium is 5 cents per $1,000 of coverage per month.
• There is an additional $1.00 per month for TSGLI (traumatic injury protection).
• At the maximum $500,000, that works out to $26.00 per month — $25.00 in basic premium plus the $1.00 TSGLI charge.

Twenty-six dollars a month for half a million in coverage, with no medical exam and no questions about your knees. That is the number to hold in your head, because it is the baseline your civilian options are going to be compared against, and none of them are going to look like that.

The 120 days of free coverage after you leave

Here is the part that lulls people. Your SGLI coverage continues free for 120 days from the date you leave the military. You are not billed. You do not apply for it. It just runs.

Which means for four months after separation, if someone asked you "do you have life insurance?", the honest answer would be yes. And then, on day 121, the honest answer becomes no, and nothing about your day changes to tell you that.

Four months is also, not coincidentally, right in the middle of the period when a newly separated veteran has the most going on: a job search or a new job, a move, a VA claim in progress, and a household budget being rebuilt from scratch. It is a bad window to be relying on your own memory.

The Three Dates That Matter

There are three numbers, all counted from your date of separation — not from your terminal leave start, not from your final out appointment, not from your last day in the office. Your DOS/ETS/EAS.

That gap between day 120 and day 240 is worth staring at. Your coverage has already lapsed, but your easy conversion right has not. People find themselves there and assume that because the SGLI ended, the VGLI opportunity ended with it. It did not. If you are reading this at day 180 with no coverage, you still have the good version of the door available. Go now.

A worked example with real dates

Say your separation date is September 30, 2026. Count it out:

Those dates are straight arithmetic from the day counts VA publishes. Do the same math with your own DOS, then put all three in whatever calendar you actually look at — and confirm the resulting dates with OSGLI rather than trusting my counting or yours.

The 240-Day Window Is the Whole Post

Everything else here is context. This is the part that decides outcomes.

From VA's VGLI page: if you sign up within 240 days of separation, no proof of good health is required. After 240 days, you must submit evidence of good health.

Read that as an underwriting question, because that is what it is. "Evidence of good health" is the insurance industry's way of asking whether they want you. Inside 240 days, VA doesn't ask. Outside 240 days, VA asks — and your answer is your medical record.

That is the uncomfortable symmetry nobody explains at the transition briefing. You spend months building a thorough medical record so the VA can see the full picture — and that is the correct move, see the Separation Health Assessment guide and the VA Disability Preparation Checklist for how to do it right. But that same record follows you into every underwriting conversation you have for the rest of your life.

The 240-day window is the one door that does not read it. Not because VA is doing you a favor, but because that is how the program is structured: a guaranteed conversion right, time-limited, exercised on a calendar rather than on a medical exam.

If you are separating with service-connected conditions, this reframes the decision entirely. The question is not "do I want to pay for VGLI." The question is "do I want to preserve a guaranteed-issue option before it expires." Those are different questions and they have different answers.

What VGLI Actually Gives You

Veterans' Group Life Insurance (VGLI) is renewable term coverage you can carry after separation. The mechanics, per VA:

• Coverage range: $10,000 to $500,000.
• Your starting amount is based on your SGLI level at separation. You cannot convert into more coverage than you were carrying.
• Increases: if you are below the maximum, you can increase coverage by $25,000 one year after getting VGLI, and every five years after that, up to $500,000 — until age 60.
• Application deadline: 1 year and 120 days after leaving the military.

Look hard at that increase schedule before you decide to reduce your SGLI in your last year of service to save money, because it is not just slow — it runs out.

Run the arithmetic. Separate at 38 carrying $200,000 of SGLI and you convert into $200,000 of VGLI. Your first increase comes one year later at 39, then every five years after that: 44, 49, 54, 59. That is five increases of $25,000 each, or $125,000 total. Then you turn 60 and the option closes.

Your lifetime ceiling in that scenario is $325,000. Not "$500,000, eventually." $325,000, ever — and only if you remember to request every single increase on schedule. The published $500,000 maximum is not a slow climb from $200,000 at age 38. It is unreachable. The only way to have $500,000 of VGLI is to walk out the door with $500,000 of SGLI, or to be young enough at separation that the ladder has enough rungs left.

What VGLI costs

I am not going to print the numbers here. That is deliberate, and it is not because they are hard to find.

VA publishes the current VGLI premium tables directly on its VGLI page, under the heading "Choose your age to find monthly premium rates as of July 1, 2025." Go there, pick your age band, and read your own number off the table. The reason it is not reproduced here is simple: rates change — they changed on July 1, 2025 — and a dollar figure frozen into a blog post is exactly how somebody ends up budgeting their family's coverage against a number that stopped being true a year ago.

What I will say structurally, and you should confirm against the live tables:

• VGLI premiums are not the flat rate you paid for SGLI. They are banded by age and scale with your coverage amount, and they rise as you get older.
• Because premiums rise with age, VGLI tends to look reasonable in your forties and considerably less reasonable in your sixties and seventies. That is normal for renewable term coverage and it is worth planning around now rather than discovering at 70.
• Get your number from VA's current rate tables — not from a forum post, not from a Facebook group, not from a stale VA page, and not from me.

The SGLI Disability Extension: Two Years Instead of 120 Days

There is a separate path for members leaving with serious disability, and it is not well publicized.

The SGLI Disability Extension allows certain members to keep their SGLI coverage free for up to two years after separation instead of 120 days. Per VA, it applies to members who are totally disabled at the time of discharge and unable to work, or who have:

• Total loss of hearing in both ears
• Permanent (long-lasting) loss of use of both of your hands, feet, or eyes — or one hand and one foot, or one hand or foot and one eye
• Loss of speech that leaves you unable to talk, even in a whisper, without the help of an artificial device

You apply using form SGLV 8715, submitted to the Office of Servicemembers' Group Life Insurance (OSGLI). Around the 20-month mark, OSGLI notifies you that the extension is ending and offers you the opportunity to convert to VGLI.

If you think you might qualify for the disability extension, raise it with your transition office and OSGLI before you separate, not after. And if you are unsure whether it applies to you, ask rather than assume — the eligibility standard here is specific, and "I have a high VA rating" is not automatically the same thing as the criteria above.

The July 2025 Premium Reduction and the Payment-Method Trap

Something good happened, and it comes with a small trap attached.

Per VA's VGLI discount FAQ, VA reduced VGLI premiums effective July 1, 2025, by 2% to 17% depending on the policy, averaging about 11%. VA cited the program's financial standing as the reason.

The reduction applies automatically to all active policyholders and to anyone approved after the effective date. But whether you have to do anything depends entirely on how you pay:

If you set up a bill-pay through your bank years ago and never touched it, you are probably still sending the old amount every month. Overpaying is the harmless version of this problem. The genuinely dangerous version is the person who reads a headline about a rate cut, guesses at a new lower number, sets their auto-pay to it, guesses wrong on the low side, and lets the policy lapse for underpayment. Do not guess. Log in, get the actual current premium for your policy, and set your payment to that.

One thing VA's FAQ does not say: how long the reduced rates last. It is not described as temporary and it is not described as permanent. Budget on the assumption that premiums can change, because they can.

SGLI Extension vs VGLI vs Commercial Term: The Honest Comparison

Here is where a lot of veteran-facing content quietly tilts. VGLI is not automatically the right answer, and pretending otherwise would be doing the same thing as the briefings this site exists to be an alternative to.

The case for commercial term

If you are separating at 27, you run regularly, you have no significant medical history, and you can pass a paramedical exam, a commercial level-term policy is frequently going to beat VGLI on price — and a 20- or 30-year level term locks your premium for the whole term instead of climbing as you age. That is a real advantage and I am not going to talk you out of it.

Shop it. Get actual quotes. Compare them against VA's current published VGLI rates and pick the cheaper option for the coverage you need.

The case for VGLI

VGLI's advantage is not price. It is that inside 240 days it does not care about your health.

If your record includes conditions a commercial underwriter would rate up or decline, VGLI may be the only guaranteed coverage available to you at any price. And "conditions an underwriter would care about" is a much broader category than "conditions that got me a high VA rating." Sleep apnea alone changes commercial pricing. So does a mental health diagnosis. So does a recent surgical history.

A note on employer group life

Your new civilian job may offer group life insurance, sometimes with no medical questions. That is a genuine benefit and worth taking. It is also worth understanding what it is: coverage that typically ends when the job does. If you build your whole plan around employer group coverage and then change jobs at 52 with a worse medical record than you have today, you will be underwritten at 52 rates with a 52-year-old's health history. Employer coverage is a good supplement. It is a shaky foundation.

One Recent Rule Change Worth Knowing About

The Accelerated Benefit Option (ABO) lets a terminally ill insured member access part of their coverage before death. A rulemaking published September 29, 2025 (90 FR 46475, document 2025-18828), effective October 29, 2025, changed who can file that application.

The update allows an alternate applicant to apply on behalf of a member who is terminally ill and medically incapacitated. The alternate applicant must hold power of attorney, guardianship, or conservatorship over the member, or be the member's VA-appointed fiduciary. The underlying eligibility standard did not change: it still requires a written medical prognosis of nine months or less to live.

This is a small, grim, genuinely useful fix. Previously, the person who most needed the benefit could be the person least able to file for it. If you hold power of attorney, guardianship, or conservatorship for a service member or veteran with an SGLI or VGLI policy — or you are their VA-appointed fiduciary — this is a change you should know exists.

Mistakes That Cost Real Money

1. Assuming SGLI just keeps going. It runs free for 120 days and then it is over. There is no bill that shows up, no lapse notice in your inbox, no signature block at final out. The failure mode here is silence, and silence is easy to miss during the four busiest months of your transition.

2. Confusing the 240-day window with the 1-year-and-120-day deadline. These are two different dates doing two different jobs. 240 days is the no-health-questions cutoff. One year and 120 days is when the door closes entirely. People hear "I have over a year to apply for VGLI," relax, apply at month ten, and discover they now have to prove they are insurable. Technically they were right about the deadline. Practically they gave away the thing that made the benefit valuable.

3. Reducing SGLI coverage in your last year to save a few dollars. Your SGLI level at separation caps your VGLI level. Increases after that come at $25,000 every five years, and stop at age 60. Trading $12.50 a month now for a permanently lower coverage ceiling is a bad trade for most people with dependents.

4. Waiting for a letter. The SGLI Disability Extension has a 20-month OSGLI notification built in, which is genuinely helpful. Standard VGLI conversion does not come with anyone chasing you. And even the 20-month notification goes to the address on file — which for a lot of newly separated veterans is two moves out of date. Own the calendar yourself.

5. Setting a bank auto-pay to a guessed premium amount. After the July 1, 2025 reduction, members paying by direct billing, credit card, or bank auto-pay have to manually adjust their payment. Guessing high wastes money. Guessing low can lapse the policy. Get the actual figure from VA and set your payment to that exact number.

6. Treating this as separate from the rest of your out-processing. It is not. The 120-day mark lands during the same stretch as your first VA payment questions, your TRICARE transition, and your final pay reconciliation — see Pay, Benefits, and Healthcare After Military Separation for how those overlap. Life insurance belongs on the same timeline as everything else in the separation checklist, not on a mental sticky note.

7. Skipping coverage entirely because you are single with no dependents. This one is defensible and I am not going to lecture you about it. But run the actual question: is there anyone — a parent who co-signed something, a sibling, a partner you are not married to yet — who would be financially worse off if you died? And separately: do you expect to have dependents within the next decade? Because if the answer to the second question is yes, the 240-day window is a one-time chance to lock in guaranteed-issue coverage before your medical record gets any longer. Declining coverage you do not currently need is a legitimate choice. Declining it without knowing that the option expires is not a choice, it is an accident.

Your Decision Tree

Work this from where you actually are on the calendar today.

Frequently Asked Questions

When does my SGLI coverage actually end after I separate?

Your Servicemembers' Group Life Insurance coverage continues free for 120 days from the date you leave the military. You are not billed for those 120 days and you do not have to do anything to get them. On day 121 the coverage is simply gone unless you converted it. The one exception is the SGLI Disability Extension: members who are totally disabled at the time of discharge and unable to work, or who have total loss of hearing in both ears, permanent loss of use of both hands, both feet, or both eyes (or one hand and one foot, or one hand or foot and one eye), or loss of speech that leaves them unable to talk even in a whisper without an artificial device, may be able to keep free coverage for up to two years after separation by applying on form SGLV 8715. Those criteria are narrower than the shorthand versions people repeat — loss of use of a single limb does not by itself qualify.

What is the 240-day VGLI window and why does it matter so much?

If you apply for Veterans' Group Life Insurance within 240 days of leaving the military, VA does not require proof of good health. Apply after 240 days and you must submit evidence of good health. That is the whole game. If you are separating with service-connected conditions — a bad back, sleep apnea, a mental health diagnosis, anything a commercial underwriter would price up or decline outright — the 240-day window is the one door that does not ask about any of it. Miss it and your insurability depends on your medical record instead of a calendar.

What is the absolute final deadline to apply for VGLI?

One year and 120 days after you leave the military. After that date you cannot apply at all, regardless of how healthy you are or how much evidence you are willing to submit. There are two separate deadlines and people confuse them constantly: 240 days is the no-health-questions cutoff, and 1 year and 120 days is the hard door-closes date. Between those two dates you can still apply, but you have to prove you are insurable.

How much VGLI coverage can I get, and can I increase it later?

VGLI coverage ranges from $10,000 to $500,000, and the amount you can start with is based on the SGLI coverage you carried at separation. You cannot buy more VGLI than the SGLI you had. If you are below the $500,000 maximum, you can increase your coverage by $25,000 one year after getting VGLI and every five years after that, up to $500,000, until you turn 60. That ladder is shorter than it sounds, because it has a hard stop. Separate at 38 with $200,000 and your increases land at 39, 44, 49, 54, and 59 — five increases, $125,000 total — giving you a lifetime ceiling of $325,000, not $500,000. For a lot of people the published maximum is not slow to reach, it is unreachable. Dropping your SGLI before you separate to save a few dollars a month can permanently cap what you are able to carry.

Is VGLI cheaper than commercial term life insurance?

Often, no. For a healthy veteran in their twenties or thirties who can pass a medical exam, a commercial level-term policy is frequently cheaper than VGLI, and it locks the premium for the whole term. VGLI's advantage is not price. Its advantage is that inside the 240-day window it ignores your health entirely. Nobody asks about your back, your sleep study, or your mental health notes. If you are healthy and insurable, shop commercial term and compare real quotes against VA's current published VGLI rates. If you have conditions that would get you rated up or declined, VGLI may be the only guaranteed coverage available to you, and the 240-day window is how you get it.

What is the SGLI Disability Extension and who qualifies?

The SGLI Disability Extension lets certain separating members keep their SGLI coverage free for up to two years after separation instead of 120 days. It applies to members who are totally disabled at the time of discharge and unable to work, or who have total loss of hearing in both ears, permanent (long-lasting) loss of use of both hands, both feet, or both eyes — or one hand and one foot, or one hand or foot and one eye — or loss of speech that leaves them unable to talk, even in a whisper, without the help of an artificial device. Read those criteria literally, because they are much narrower than most people assume: losing the use of a single limb does not by itself qualify, and neither does a high VA rating on its own. You apply using form SGLV 8715, submitted to the Office of Servicemembers' Group Life Insurance (OSGLI). Around the 20-month mark, OSGLI notifies you that the extension is ending and offers you the chance to convert to VGLI. Do not treat that notification as your reminder system — put the date in your own calendar.

Did VGLI premiums go down, and do I need to do anything about it?

VA reduced VGLI premiums effective July 1, 2025, by 2% to 17% depending on the policy, averaging about 11%, citing the program's financial standing. The reduction applies automatically to all active policyholders and to anyone approved after the effective date. But how you pay determines whether you have work to do. If you pay by VA compensation deduction or EFT, you do not need to do anything. If you pay by direct billing, credit card, or bank auto-pay, you must manually adjust your payment amount yourself. VA has not stated how long the reduced rates will remain in place, so do not assume they are permanent.

What happens if I miss all the VGLI deadlines?

You are done with VGLI. After 1 year and 120 days from separation there is no application, no appeal for late filing, and no reinstatement of a policy you never opened. Your remaining options are commercial life insurance, which is medically underwritten and may decline you or price you up based on service-connected conditions, or group coverage through a civilian employer, which typically ends when the job does. This is why the 240-day window matters more than almost any other single date on your separation timeline: it is one of the few benefits deadlines where missing it removes an option permanently rather than just delaying it.

Final Thoughts

Most transition deadlines are recoverable. Miss the BDD filing window and you file a standard claim instead. Miss a TAP class and you reschedule. Miss a records appointment and you request the records later. Annoying, but survivable.

This one is different in kind. Past that date there is no version of the conversation where you get the option back. Not with a better explanation, not with a congressional inquiry, not with a good reason. The program simply does not have a mechanism for it.

And the specific injustice of it — worth naming, since we are not doing pep talks here — is that the people most likely to need guaranteed-issue coverage are exactly the people most likely to be distracted during the window. If you separated with a stack of service-connected conditions, you spent months 1 through 8 post-separation dealing with a VA claim, medical appointments, and a body that is not cooperating. That is the same eight months. The window closes while you are busy with the reason you need it.

So do the boring thing. Open your calendar right now. Find your separation date. Add 120 days, add 240 days, add 1 year and 120 days. Set reminders on all three, and set the 240-day one two weeks early so you have time to actually file.

That is fifteen minutes of work protecting a decision you cannot make twice.

About the author: Bruce Goren is a retired Air Force member (Ret. Feb 2026). He went through his own separation, VA claim, and post-service benefits transition, which informed the practical guidance shared here. This post is general information, not tax, legal, financial, or insurance advice — confirm your coverage amounts, deadlines, and premium figures directly with VA's Office of Servicemembers' Group Life Insurance (OSGLI) and VA's current published rates, and talk to a licensed insurance professional before deciding what coverage is right for your family.