Kentucky Death Benefit for National Guard and Reserve Members

KRS 61.315 pays a lump sum of eighty thousand dollars from the state general fund on the line-of-duty death of a member of the Kentucky National Guard on state active duty under KRS 38.030, or of a member of a state National Guard or Reserve component on federal active duty under Title 10 or Title 32 who names Kentucky as home of record for military purposes. The death must occur as a direct result of an act in the line of duty, and for Guard and Reserve members the qualifying deaths are those occurring on or after July 1, 2002. The home of record provision is the one that surprises families. It is not a residency test. A member serving with another state's National Guard, or with a Reserve component anywhere, who names Kentucky as home of record is covered by this section. Conversely, a Kentucky resident who named another state as home of record is not. How the eighty thousand is apportioned depends on who survives, and the structure matters for a family planning around it. If there is a surviving spouse and no surviving children, the spouse receives the full eighty thousand dollars. If there are surviving children and a surviving spouse, the payment is apportioned equally among the children and the spouse. If there is no surviving spouse, the payment goes to the surviving children aged eighteen or older. For surviving children under eighteen, the State Treasurer pays thirty-five thousand dollars to the surviving children and holds forty-five thousand dollars in trust, divided into equal accounts at appropriate interest rates for each child until that child reaches eighteen. If a child dies before reaching eighteen, that child's account is paid to the child's estate. So a family with minor children does not receive eighty thousand dollars at once; a little under half arrives immediately and the balance is held. Two provisions beyond the money. The benefit under KRS 61.315(9) is in addition to any other police, sheriff, firefighter, volunteer firefighter, emergency medical services, or National Guard or Reserve retirement or benefit fund established by the federal government or by any state, county, or municipality. It does not offset federal death gratuity or SGLI. And under subsection (8) the estate of a person whose spouse or surviving children would be eligible, and the estate of any regular member of the United States Armed Forces who names Kentucky as home of record, is exempted from probate fees. The Department of Military Affairs promulgates the administrative regulations that define which National Guard and Reserve component members qualify for coverage and which circumstances constitute death in the line of duty, so the operative definition of "line of duty" for a marginal case sits in regulation rather than in the statute. The same section covers peace officers, firefighters, correctional officers, jailers, school resource officers, and emergency medical services personnel, which is why searches for it often surface material about firefighter cancer presumptions that has nothing to do with military service.