Companies need to continue paying for employees’ healthcare coverage while they’re on FMLA leave. But can you recover any of that cost if an employee decides not to come back?

The answer depends on why they don’t return.

Under the FMLA, employers can’t recover premiums paid for health coverage if an employee fails to return to work because of their own or a family member’s serious health condition, or due to “other circumstances beyond the employee’s control.”

Those circumstances include:

• the employee’s spouse has been transferred to a job more 75 miles from your company’s location
• the employee is laid off while on leave, and
• a “key employee” is denied reinstatement by the company.

In other cases, employers can recoup the costs if employees fail to return to work. Under the law, “returning to work” means working for at least 30 days after taking leave.

So if an employee resigns or retires within 30 days of his or her return from leave, the company may be entitled to recover its share of the health benefit premiums.

Tags: FMLA, health premiums, return to work