Accessing your Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) just got easier, especially for those whilst underway. Members can now authenticate their account using their .mil or personal email, rather than their phone number.
“Mobile phones are not available in the middle of the ocean, which made it very difficult to log into the TSP website,” said Lt. Cmdr. Keith Blevins member of the Sea Duty Readiness Council. “To fix this issue, the Sea Duty Readiness Council began working with the Employee Thrift Advisory Council and devised a solution to use email instead of a phone number to verify the user accessing their TSP account.”
Service members from all six branches of the military can now use their “.mil’ or their personal email accounts for their multi-factor authentication (MFA) to log into your account. Previously using a phone number for MFA prevented members underway from accessing their TSP accounts in order to make changes, check on their account, and maintain a sense of financial stability.
“Small things like changing TSP MFA are not going to greatly enhance sea duty individually,” Blevins said. “However, when combined with a gauntlet of initiatives ranging from sea pay increases and resiliency absence to wifi underway and beyond, it will improve life at sea and improve fleet readiness”
This new policy change only affects active duty and reserve service members. Government civilians and retirees are still required to use a phone number.
Resources:
TSP Website
MyCG article: Pay increase for members assigned to cutters
MyCG article: Major cutters: New policy will support members' resilience
MyCG article: A homage to sea duty in the Coast Guard – Successes, challenges, and being underway