DIC
DIC — Dependency and Indemnity Compensation — is the tax-free monthly VA payment to survivors when a veteran's death was service-connected or the veteran was rated totally disabled for the qualifying period. Since 2023 it pays in full alongside SBP, and it never counts toward Medicare's IRMAA income test.
The survivor payment with two superpowers
DIC's first power is the 2023 repeal of the SBP offset: eligible surviving spouses now draw SBP and DIC in full — a genuine income floor. The second is invisibility: DIC is tax-free and excluded from MAGI, so it funds the $202.90 Part B premium CHAMPVA requires without ever pushing the survivor toward an IRMAA bracket. File VA Form 21P-534EZ — usually alongside the CHAMPVA claim, since the same facts open both; a VSO handles it free. Remarriage rules carry their own thresholds (currently keyed to remarriage at 55+ for retention), distinct from CHAMPVA's and TRICARE's — three clocks, deliberately catalogued on the survivor pages.
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