MassHealth Administrative Appeal re: the countability of an annuity

Oct 13, 2017

OUTCOME: Favorable

The Fair Hearing Officer ruled in Appellant’s favor that a spouse’s TIAA-CREF traditional annuity from a former employer was not a countable asset for the purpose of determining the community spouse’s ... CSRA. MassHealth had argued that the annuity was a countable 401(k) and that it rendered the Appellant over assets, until such time as it was annuitized into “transfer payout” form (the fastest payout permitted under the contract terms). The Hearing Officer applied 130 CMR 520.007(J)(1), which states that “[I]f the annuity can be converted to a lump sum, the lump sum, less any penalties or costs of converting to a lump sum, is a countable asset.” In this case, the Hearing Officer agreed with Appellant’s counsel that there was no point at which the community spouse could have obtained a lump sum from the annuity, including before the transfer payout annuity conversion, and therefore the annuity was a noncountable asset.