Benefits Glossary
Veterans & Military Family Benefits Glossary
Plain-English definitions of six core veteran-finance terms, written for the transitioning service member, the retired veteran, and the spouse or family member who helps interpret the paperwork. Each entry links to a related Clarison page where the same topic gets worked through at greater depth.
Not legal or financial advice. Federal program names are spelled out in full with their acronym on first reference. For decisions that touch your specific facts, schedule a working session with a credentialed professional in your jurisdiction.
Thrift Savings Plan
Thrift Savings Plan (TSP)
The TSP is the federal government’s defined-contribution retirement savings plan for civilian federal employees and uniformed service members. It behaves like a 401(k) with a small, fixed menu of low-cost index funds — the G, C, S, I, and F funds — and it accepts a relatively high annual contribution limit. Service members under the Blended Retirement System (BRS) receive an automatic 1% government contribution and matching on the first 5% they contribute themselves, so the contribution decision is one of the few genuinely free-money decisions in federal benefits. The plan is portable: a separating service member can leave the balance in place, roll it into an IRA, roll it into a civilian employer’s plan, or cash it out — each with a different set of tax consequences.
How Clarison applies this
A cornerstone advisor brief on Clarison’s site walks through the TSP decision window at separation — the contribution-strategy question while in service and the disposition question once you leave. Continue on the services page.
Thrift Savings Plan to Individual Retirement Account
TSP-to-IRA rollovers
After you separate, your TSP balance can move into an IRA either via a direct trustee-to-trustee transfer or via a check made payable to you (the latter triggers an automatic 20% federal withholding that you can recover on your tax return only if you complete the rollover within 60 days). The tax treatment of the rollover depends on whether the original TSP balance was traditional or Roth and whether the receiving IRA matches that treatment — moving a traditional TSP into a Roth IRA is a conversion, not a rollover, and creates a tax bill in the year of the move. The practical advantages of holding the balance in an IRA instead of in the TSP are usually a wider and cheaper fund menu, easier beneficiary management, and arguably better Required Minimum Distribution mechanics as the account owner ages.
How Clarison applies this
Clarison’s services page frames the rollover question inside a broader separation plan, so the IRA choice sits next to the TSP strategy and the SBP election rather than being decided in isolation. Continue on the services overview.
Department of Veterans Affairs Disability Compensation
VA disability coordination
VA disability compensation is tax-free monthly compensation paid by the Department of Veterans Affairs because a medical condition was caused by — or made worse by — your military service. The percentage rating reflects the severity of those service-connected conditions, not rank or years in. For most retirees with a combined rating of 40% or lower, military retired pay from the Department of Defense is reduced dollar-for-dollar by the VA compensation they receive; at 50% or higher, most retirees qualify for Concurrent Retirement and Disability Pay (CRDP) or Combat-Related Special Compensation (CRSC), which restores the offset. Coordination here means understanding which of those benefits stack, when they don’t, where to apply, and how the rating decision cascades into the Survivor Benefit Plan, the TSP, and FEHB.
How Clarison applies this
The self-assessment measures whether an advisor’s current content visibly addresses VA disability coordination — one of the highest-intent search queries from transitioning service members — alongside retirement pay, the TSP, and the SBP election. Continue on the advisor content audit.
Survivor Benefit Plan
Survivor Benefit Plan (SBP)
The SBP is the optional annuity elected at military retirement that continues a portion of your retired pay to your eligible survivor after you die. The election is usually made for spouse coverage, child coverage, or an “insurable interest” beneficiary like a former spouse or business partner, and the cost shows up as a permanent monthly reduction in your own retired pay. The election is irrevocable past a standard 90-day reconsideration window, so the timing at retirement matters in a way that’s hard to unwind later. VA disability compensation itself is not part of the SBP annuity calculation, but the gross-retired-pay inputs inside an SBP covered by Concurrent Retirement and Disability Pay follow a specific set of DFAS rules — the interaction is genuinely easy to get wrong on a whiteboard.
How Clarison applies this
The anonymized case study on Clarison’s site describes how one advisory built a SBP election brief from the questions its own team was already hearing from retiring service members. Continue on the anonymized advisor case study.
Permanent Change of Station
Permanent Change of Station (PCS) financial planning
A PCS move is a federal relocation under military orders. It generates a specific stack of entitlements — Dislocation Allowance (DLA), Temporary Lodging Expense (TLE), the household-goods shipment paid by the government, per diem travel, and either a Partial DLA or a Full DLA depending on your dependency status — each with its own eligibility rules. A PCS move is also a financial event outside the entitlements: the residential real-estate decision (buy, sell, rent, hold with a property manager), the spouse-employment disruption, the TSP and Thrift Line Loan decisions during the transition, the cost of childcare in a new duty station, and the right port-to-port timing for the household-goods and Personally Procured Move (PPM) paperwork.
How Clarison applies this
Clarison’s services page lists PCS-era financial planning alongside retirement and TSP positioning, because the same advisor will end up helping the client through both kinds of transition. Continue on the services overview.
Servicemembers Civil Relief Act and Military Lending Act protections
Military-specific debt relief pathways
Two federal statutes apply targeted protections to debt held by active-duty service members and, in some cases, their dependents. The Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA) caps interest rates on debts that pre-date active-duty service at 6%, requires lenders to apply that reduced rate by an affirmative request, and provides specific protections against default judgments and certain eviction and foreclosure actions. The Military Lending Act (MLA) is broader in scope and applies to consumer credit products opened during active service, capping the all-in Annual Percentage Rate — the “MAPR” — at 36% and imposing mandatory disclosures. Both protections are request-based, meaning the borrower usually has to affirmatively invoke them by contacting the lender and submitting the right paperwork.
How Clarison applies this
The audit asks whether the firm currently produces clear, plain-language content on the SCRA and MLA, because debt-relief search queries are some of the highest-intent civilian searches from service members on active orders. Continue on the advisor content audit.
Read the definitions, then ask the question.
One of these terms is sitting in a real client’s file right now.
The glossary is reference material. The audit is the working call where one of these terms — the TSP, the SBP election, the VA disability offset, the PCS move, the IRA rollover, the active-duty debt question — is paired to your firm’s current content and the client’s actual decision. If you can recognize the term, you can run the call.