(Washington, DC) By a unanimous vote, the U.S. Senate has approved a measure to make permanent a $150,000 increase in life insurance coverage for military men and women, up from $250,000 to $400,000. The increase is effective for all servicemembers' deaths which have occurred as of September 1, 2005.

"With the adoption of this bipartisan, bi-cameral agreement, the Senate has now done its part to make permanent the increase which the Congress temporarily approved in April. This is an important message to service personnel now in Iraq and Afghanistan ? your families will be taken care of," said Sen. Larry Craig, chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs.

The House of Representatives is scheduled to take up the measure on Wednesday.

The new legislation also includes a spousal-notification provision which requires the applicable military service to notify the spouse if the servicemember chooses not be insured. The new law also requires the military to notify the spouse if the servicemember names someone other than the spouse, or child of the member, as the beneficiary.

"This is important, especially for mothers with young children," Craig said.

In February, Tiffany Petty, a 25-year-old mother of two young children from Inkom, Idaho, testified before the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee about the struggles she had dealing with the death of her husband, who was killed in Iraq. She said that just days before he left, she learned that he had named his parents to receive half of the money from his life insurance policy.

"I did open another life insurance policy on him just days before he left for Iraq," Petty told the committee. "We were very fortunate that we had that extra life insurance policy, but other families may not have that opportunity."

Sen. Craig said he hopes the notification provision encourages serious financial discussions between military spouses.

In addition to increasing the life insurance coverage to $400,000, which costs servicemembers $26.00 a month, earlier this year Congress approved a $100,000 payment to the spouse of a servicemember who dies or is killed in a combat area, or as a result of a combat-related activity.