Focused Tool

Survivor Benefit Estimator

Compare the tradeoff between more pension while you are alive and more pension protection for your spouse after your death. This tool is built to make the math more visible, not to predict when anyone will die.

Best For

Spouse-protection tradeoffs

Use this when the question is how much pension you keep now versus how much income protection the household keeps later.

Use Before

Full-plan modeling

Choose the survivor option that feels right here first, then test whether the household still likes the larger plan once that choice changes the pension amount.

Next Step

See the household impact

After comparing options here, move into the planner or read the survivor-income guide for more decision context.

Open Full Planner Read Survivor Guide

Estimator Inputs

Retirement Age Service Credit Years Final Average Salary Pension COLA (%) Benefit Enhancement Spouse / Survivor Age Survivor Years After Death

How To Read This

Your monthly pension is what you keep while you are alive.
Survivor monthly pension is what your spouse would keep after your death.
The death-age table assumes the survivor still needs the pension for the selected number of years after your death.
Single life usually maximizes current income. Higher survivor percentages usually protect the household more if you die earlier.

Estimator basis

The joint-option reductions here are estimated from sampled Washington DRS outputs across spouse age gaps from 10 years younger to 10 years older. We scale those reductions to your single-life pension and interpolate between age gaps.

What this is not

This is not a mortality prediction model and it is not a replacement for an official DRS quote. It is a decision aid designed to help you feel the tradeoff range more clearly.

Go deeper

Read Survivor Options, Spouses, and the Income Your Household Keeps and compare retirement timing in the Retirement Age Comparison Tool. If you want to isolate pension scale first, try the Lifetime Pension Value Calculator.

Survivor Option Comparison

Run the estimator to compare current pension, survivor pension, and death-age tradeoffs.

Enter inputs and run the estimator.

Highest Income Now

Run the estimator

See which option leaves the most monthly pension in your check while you are alive.

Strongest Survivor Protection

Run the estimator

See which option leaves the largest monthly pension for the surviving spouse.

Middle-Ground Option

Run the estimator

See which option splits the difference between current income and survivor protection.

Core Comparison

Swipe sideways to view the full option table on smaller screens.

Option	Your Monthly Pension	Survivor Monthly Pension	Give-Up vs Single	Reduction	Decision Lens
No survivor comparison has been run yet.

Decision Snapshots

Swipe sideways to compare every decision snapshot column on smaller screens.

Option
No scenario table has been run yet.