The Public Safety Officers' Benefits (PSOB) program provides death and education benefits to survivors of fallen law enforcement officers, firefighters, and other first responders, and disability benefits to officers catastrophically injured in the line of duty. Benefits are not payable for partial or short-term disabilities.

The PSOB Program is a federal program administered by the United States Department of Justice. Eligible jurisdictions include local, state, tribal, and federal public safety agencies, and national organizations.

Physical injuries:

To qualify for coverage under the PSOB program, a public safety officer's disability or death must have been the result of a personal injury. The PSOB regulation defines an injury for the purposes of benefit eligibility as:

a traumatic physical wound (or a traumatized physical condition of the body) directly and proximately caused by external force (such as bullets, explosives, sharp instruments, blunt objects, or physical blows), chemicals, electricity, climatic conditions, infectious disease, radiation, virus, or bacteria, and includes (with respect to a WTC [World Trade Center]

Presumptive coverages and eligibility:

Heart Attack, Stroke, or Vascular Rupture if an officer engaged in nonroutine stressful or strenuous physical activity as part of an emergency response or training exercise, and if the condition began during the physical activity, while the officer remained on duty after the physical activity, or within 24 hours of the physical activity. Effective in 2003.

COVID-19 if an officer engaged in line of duty action or activity between January 1, 2020, and May 11, 2023, and had COVID-19 within 45 days of being on duty during the aforementioned period.

Suicide or Attempted Suicide if a death or disability of an officer occurred after one of the following on or after January 1, 2019:

• the officer's exposure on duty to one of the types of traumatic events provided in the statute was a substantial factor in the attempted suicide or suicide, or
• the officer's attempted suicide or suicide occurred within 45 days of the officer's exposure on duty to one of the types of traumatic events provided in the statute and the attempted suicide or suicide was not inconsistent with a psychiatric disorder.

Cancer – on December 17, 2025, Congress expanded the Honoring Our Fallen Heroes Act for PSOB benefits to firefighters who have become disabled or die from certain occupational cancers. To be eligible for benefits, the firefighter must be diagnosed with a listed cancer at least 5 years after beginning public service and no later than 15 years from their last day of public service.

The Honoring Our Fallen Heroes Act will allow for claims from deaths or disabilities incurred on or after January 1, 2020.

PSOB is currently working on how they will be administering these benefits, but members can begin to apply for them now to ensure they don’t miss deadlines. Standard deadlines are three years from the officer’s injury or death. It is unknown at this time what the deadlines will be for allowable retroactive benefits since they are allowing for incidents more than 3 years ago.