North Dakota National Guard Death Benefit for State Active Duty

Section 37-01-48 lets the national guard pay a death benefit to a designated beneficiary, or to the next of kin, of a Guard service member who died while serving in a state active duty status. House Bill 1076 of the 2025 session raised the ceiling from fifteen thousand dollars to one hundred thousand, as an emergency measure approved on March 17, 2025. Anything published before that, including the federal benefits libraries, still gives the figure as $15,000. The difference to a family is eighty-five thousand dollars, which is why this is tracked. Two words in the section limit it and both should be said plainly. The Guard "may pay" the benefit rather than shall, and the payment is "subject to available funds". This is a ceiling on a discretionary payment out of an appropriation, not an entitlement in a fixed amount. The adjutant general may adopt rules to implement it. State active duty is the gate. This is duty under the state chapter, which in North Dakota means the Governor's call-out for a flood, a blizzard or a civil emergency. A Guard member killed on federal Title 10 orders died on federal duty and the family is looking at the federal death gratuity and Servicemembers' Group Life Insurance instead. Unlike some state death benefits, this one recognises a designated beneficiary. Where a member has designated someone, the payment goes to them; where they have not, it goes to next of kin. Two neighbouring provisions cover a Guard member who is hurt rather than killed. Section 37-01-44 authorises the Guard to pay medical expenses for a member called to state active duty who sustains an injury or illness found to have occurred in the line of duty and not covered by workforce safety and insurance, for costs not covered by other health insurance, subject to the adjutant general's rules and available funds. Section 37-01-47 lets the Guard pay a member's primary health insurance premium, or the employer-sponsored premium cost share the member pays, during a period of state active duty. Both were amended in the 2025 session. Members of the National Guard Association of North Dakota also carry $1,000 of state sponsored life insurance at no cost, with $10,000 at no cost for the first year for a new recruit who enrolls within 180 days of joining. That is an association program rather than a state benefit, and it sits alongside rather than inside anything in this entry.