ENROLLED
COMMITTEE SUBSTITUTE
FOR
H. B. 2051
(By Delegate Kiss)
[Passed March 10, 1995; in effect ninety days from passage.]
AN ACT to amend and reenact section twenty-four, article ten,
chapter five of the code of West Virginia, one thousand nine
hundred thirty-one, as amended, relating to the public
employees retirement system and allowing retirants, upon the
death of a spouse, to select a different annuity option; and
providing that the new annuity option be of equal actuarial
value with the annuity option in effect at the death of the
spouse.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That section twenty-four, article ten, chapter five of the
code of West Virginia, one thousand nine hundred thirty-one, as
amended, be amended and reenacted to read as follows:
ARTICLE 10. WEST VIRGINIA PUBLIC EMPLOYEES RETIREMENT ACT.
§5-10-24. Annuity options.
Prior to the effective date of his or her retirement, but
not thereafter except upon the death of a spouse, a member may
elect to receive his or her annuity as a straight life annuity
payable throughout his or her life, or he or she may elect to receive the actuarial equivalent, at the time, of his or her
straight life annuity in a reduced annuity payable throughout his
or her life, and nominate a beneficiary, in accordance with
option A or B set forth below:
Option A -- Joint and survivor annuity. -- Upon the death of
a retirant, who elected option A, his or her reduced annuity
shall be continued throughout the life of and paid to the
beneficiary, having an insurable interest in the retirant's life,
whom the retirant nominated by written designation duly executed
and filed with the board of trustees prior to the effective date
of his or her retirement; or
Option B -- Modified joint and survivor annuity. -- Upon the
death of a retirant who elected option B, one half of his or her
reduced annuity shall be continued throughout the life of and
paid to the beneficiary, having an insurable interest in the
retirant's life, whom the retirant nominated by written
designation duly executed and filed with the board of trustees
prior to the effective date of his or her retirement.
Upon the death of a spouse, a retirant may elect any of the
retirement options offered by the provisions of this section in
an amount adjusted on a fair basis to be of equal actuarial value
as the annuity prospectively in effect relative to the surviving
member at the time the new option is elected.