payment of benefits by check; delivery

payment of benefits by check; delivery Sec. 920. (a) Monetary benefits under laws administered by the Veterans’ Administration shall be paid by checks drawn, pursuant to certification by the Administrator, by the Secretary of the Treasury in such form as to protect the United States against loss, and payable by the Secretary of the Treasury. Such checks shall be payable without separate vouchers or receipts except in any case in which the Administrator may consider a voucher necessary for the protection of the Government. Such checks shall be transmitted by mail to the payee thereof at his last-known address, and the envelope or cover thereof may bear an appropriate notice of the prohibition set forth in subsection (b). (b) Postmasters, delivery clerks, letter carriers, and all other postal employees are prohibited from delivering any mail addressed by the United States and containing any such check to any person whomsoever, if he has died or moved, or in the case of a widow, if the postal employee believes that she has remarried (unless the mail is addressed to her in the name she has acquired by her remarriage). The preceding sentence shall apply in the case of checks in payment of benefits other than pension, compensation, dependency and indemnity compensation, and insurance, only insofar as the Administrator deems it necessary to protect the United States against loss. (c) Whenever mail is not delivered because of the prohibition of subsection (b), such mail shall be returned forthwith by the post-71 Stat. 121master with a statement of the reason for so doing, and if because of death or remarriage, the date thereof, if known. Checks returned under this subsection because of death or remarriage shall be canceled.