NY PFL: How to Determine Length of Leave in Overlapping Calendar Years

We had a question come through yesterday from a client experiencing some confusion over tracking NY Paid Family Leave.

I imagine its a common scenario, so chances are you will face something similar to this situation in the future. So take two minutes to get prepared.

Here’s the situation.

Currently, NYS is increasing the annual leave entitlement by two weeks each year until capping out at 12 weeks.

So, what do you do when someone has a leave that crosses from one year to the next? Do they automatically get the additional two-week entitlement added to their current case?

Here’s the example case we dealt with:

There was a employee who went on PFL to care for her newborn child in December of 2018. At the time when she applied for the leave, the max entitlement was 8 weeks.

Her leave crossed over into 2019, which now provides employees with a maximum of 10 weeks of Paid Family Leave.

Should she get the additional 2 weeks automatically?

Here’s what the NY PFL hotline had to say! “It’s up to the PFL insurance carrier to make that determination.”

Some carriers will see this as one request, and will state that since the request originated in 2018, then only 8 weeks are permitted for that leave event.

Even if there was a break in the leave, or if the employee submitted a new request in 2019 to bond with her same child (same leave event), if she was with the same insurance carrier, some carriers will treat the request is an extension of the original leave, and still only allot 8 weeks.

However, if this same woman requested PFL for an unrelated case in 2019, the insurance company would recognize it as a new case eligible to the full 10-week entitlement (minus the time already used in the previous 12 months).

Bottom line, this would be a question for your individual PFL insurance carrier.