A special provisions retirement (payable for special category employees like law enforcement officers (LEOs) and firefighters) is used ONLY in computing an immediate retirement. This type of retirement provides a more generous method of computing the amount of retirement payable because these employees are retirement eligible with fewer years of service and at a younger age.
The age and service requirements to qualify for a law enforcement retirement are:

Keep in mind, qualifying law enforcement/firefighter service includes work after a transfer to a supervisory or administrative position as long as the work is still in the same capacity and there is no break in law enforcement service of more than 3 days. The determination whether service qualifies as special provisions entitlement is made by the appropriate administrative authority of an agency, usually the agency head. The employing agency must submit a certification letter with an employee’s retirement package to OPM to certify service covered under the special retirement provisions.
The special provisions retirement formula is far more generous than the one used for regular FERS retirement. See the formula below:

    
The question is, if you separate from a law enforcement/ firefighter position before you are eligible for a special provisions retirement, what retirement benefits will you receive?
You will not be paid a LEO retirement. Special provision retirements are paid only for immediate retirements. An immediate retirement requires an employee to have qualifying age and service on the date of separation, and payments begin within 30 days after separation.

A recent question was posed by a LEO who had worked for 20 years as a law enforcement officer, but was under age 50 and leaving Federal service. She wanted to know when the deferred retirement would be payable and if she would receive the LEO computation.
Though she has 20 years of LEO service, she is separating before age 50, and therefore does not qualify for immediate retirement. She will later qualify for a deferred retirement under regular FERS at her minimum retirement age, with no age reduction. To review the retirement computations for regular FERS, please see the previous article on “The Federal Retirement Benefit.”

Additionally, with a deferred retirement, she will not qualify for coverage under the Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) or under the Federal Employees’ Group Life Insurance (FEGLI) programs. She will not receive the FERS Annuity Supplement which normally starts for LEOs at retirement and ends at age 62. And last, she will receive no credit for accumulated unused sick leave in her deferred FERS computation.

However, she may recover her law enforcement retirement if she considers returning to Federal service later and retiring after she reaches the appropriate retiring age. In the above example, if this employee returns to work for the government and reaches age 50, she would be able to retire with enough qualifying LEO service for an immediate retirement and retain FEHB and FEGLI coverage as long as she enrolls immediately when rehired. She would be eligible for the FERS supplement, and her unused sick leave would now be included. Best of all, she does not have to return to a law enforcement position.

Please be aware of your retirement rights as special provisions employees. The OPM Handbook for CSRS and FERS employees devotes an entire chapter to Special Category retirements. You may access this information at:  www.opm.gov. Under the retirement section, Forms and Publications, you can find the Handbook, Chapter 46 for Special Category retirements.