I’m a federal government employee, and the way it’s been explained to me is that you’re not required to choose either all the death benefit or none of it. You can choose a percentage. And as long as you choose more than 2% death benefit, the government will continue to pay its share of your (the spouse’s) health insurance premiums if your spouse (the employee) dies first.
Not sure if health insurance premiums are what you were asking about (or even if the information I gave above is 100% correct), but the spousal health insurance premium payments are an enormous benefit of federal employment and should not be passed up, especially if you can get it by only taking (and paying for) a small percentage of the death benefit.
