Service members may not understand how their military insurance has been enhanced to cover traumatic injury, whether suffered in war or at home even while off duty.

The new Traumatic Injury Protection under Servicemembers' Group Life Insurance is referred to as "Wounded Warrior Insurance" by proponents who pushed it through Congress last year.

Most of the 2,700 recipients to date qualified for TSGLI retroactively because of injuries sustained in combat areas since the U.S. invaded Afghanistan in 2001.

But for injuries after Nov. 30, 2005, the phrase "wounded warrior" fails to capture the breadth of TSGLI.

That's because any service member, active or reserve, who has Servicemembers' Group Life Insurance and suffers a traumatic injury can be eligible for trauma pay.

A reservist might qualify if he loses a limb in a car crash while commuting to his civilian job. A National Guard member might qualify if she is paralyzed in a diving accident on vacation.

Thomas Lastowka, of the Veterans' Benefits Administration, told the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee that payments help service members handle the expense and strain of adjusting to life-altering injuries. Payments range from $25,000 to $100,000.

The most compelling testimony came from Army Sgt. John Keith with the 1st Calvary Division at Fort Hood, Texas. Keith was injured by a rocket-propelled grenade in Iraq in November 2004 and lost a leg.

He spent 60 days as an inpatient at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, and five months more with his wife and two children, living in a single hotel room while he received physical therapy and recovered from his wounds.

Besides losing his left leg, Keith suffered hearing loss and third-degree burns on his abdomen and spent 14 days in a coma. The $100,000 TSGLI payment allowed him to restore his savings, pay off most of his debts and buy his wife a new van.

Col. John Sackett with the Army Human Resources Command in Alexandria, Va., leads a staff that administers TSGLI for soldiers. So far, he said, 1,628 soldiers have received awards worth $101 million.

An inequity is that retroactive payments don't cover war-related injuries outside of combat zones.

That affects a few wounded warriors like Navy Seaman Robert Roeder who lost a leg aboard the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk.

Roeder was injured by an arresting wire during flight operations as his ship steamed toward the Gulf of Arabia in January 2005 to participate in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

The Senate committee would study whether TSGLI eligibility should be expanded.

More information on TSGLI is available at www.insurance.va.gov/sgliSite/ TSGLI/TSGLI.htm.