How to calculate the insurance period for sick leave: a manual for a personnel officer

In order to pay for an employee’s sick leave as required by law, an accountant must take into account many factors, including accurately calculating the employee’s length of service. This calculation itself is not as easy as it might seem at first glance. It, like all other sections of accounting, has its own subtleties.

The easiest way to calculate length of service is to use the length of service calculator for sick leave.

What types of experience exist?

An ignorant person may think that there is only one type of work experience - general. This is wrong. In fact, experience is divided into several types:

1. Actually the total work experience . Here it is necessary to count all periods of a person’s work, including under contract agreements and employment contracts. It is calculated based on the contracts in hand and entries in the work book;
2. Special experience . Here we consider work that was carried out in special conditions (for example, in hazardous industries, in the north, etc.);
3. Continuous experience . The main distinguishing feature of this type of work experience is the total period of work in one or several organizations without interruption. However, since 2007 it is not taken into account when calculating payments for temporary disability;
4. Insurance experience . It is this type of experience that is taken to calculate sick leave. It includes all periods of work with mandatory insurance transfers, as well as civil service and military service.

Documents for calculating the insurance period

The list of documents confirming the employee’s insurance experience is given in Section 2 of the Rules. The main source of information about the length of service is the employee’s work record book, and in its absence - written employment contracts, certificates from previous places of work, extracts from orders and personal accounts, payroll statements.

Calculating length of service for sick leave: main points

As mentioned above, to calculate sick leave payments, you need to take into account only those periods of the employee’s work for which payments were made to the relevant insurance funds. In particular, the periods of work for:

• contract agreements;
• work book;
• employment contracts;
• individual entrepreneurship;
• public service.

In addition, when calculating the insurance period, contract service in the army military service .

An example of calculating length of service (according to a work book):

1. We take all periods of work according to labor dates, starting from hiring to dismissal;
2. we add them up, counting days, months and years separately;
3. Now we need to convert days into months, and months into years.

For example , the amount of insurance experience according to the work book turned out to be 8 years 14 months 35 days. We convert months into years, we get: 1 year and two months, we do the same with days, as a result we have: 1 month 5 days. Now we add everything up and have the following total: 8 years + 1 year 2 months + 1 month 5 days = 9 years 3 months and 5 days.

For your information! There is no need to include time spent studying at a university or other professional educational institutions in the calculation of sick pay.

When calculating length of service, only those periods of work are taken into account when the employer contributed all due payments to extra-budgetary funds for the employee.

Attention! If at the same time an employee worked in two places at once, then to calculate the length of service for sick leave you need to take only one of them.

Why is it important to know the total insurance experience? The fact is that the percentage of payment from the salary of a sick employee directly depends on it.

How to determine the number of complete years and months

Paragraph 23 of the Rules states that the periods included in the insurance period should be calculated in calendar order based on full months (30 days) and a full year (12 months). In this case, every 30 days must be converted into full months, and every 12 months - into full years.

In practice, different translation techniques are used. One of the most common is as follows. Each calendar month is considered a full month, regardless of the number of days. So, a full month is considered to be the period from January 1 to January 31, from February 1 to February 28 (if the year is not a leap year), etc.

The number of days in incomplete months is added, and the result is divided by 30. For example, in the first month of the period 28 days were worked, and in the last month - 17 days. A total of 45 days were worked in the period (28 days + 17 days). It is believed that 45 days is one full month and 15 days (45 days: 30 days = 1 month + 15 days).

Amount of payments depending on length of service

By law, the final amount of sick pay directly depends on the employee’s insurance coverage. That is, if:

• If the length of service is less than 5 years, then the employee receives 60% of the income for one working day missed due to illness;
• experience from 5 to 8 years, then the amount already reaches 80%;
• 8 years of experience or more - a person can count on 100% payment.

In situations where the length of service is less than six months, payments come from the state budget. The amount for the certificate of incapacity for work is calculated based on the minimum wage (minimum wage) for one month (according to the calendar).

The average daily minimum wage can be calculated using the following formula:

Minimum wage × 24 months / 730 days

Important! If an illness or injury occurs to an employee at the workplace while he is performing his job duties, then sick leave payments will be made to him in the amount of 100%.

Nuance! When calculating payment for sick leave, do not forget that payment for one month cannot be higher than four monthly insurance payments.

How does length of service affect the amount of benefits when calculating?

According to current legislation, the amount of the benefit directly depends on the employee’s SS: the higher it is, the greater the percentage of average daily earnings. The table will tell you how much benefit to pay:

If the insurance period for paying sick leave is less than 6 months, then the calculation is based on the minimum wage.

ATTENTION! The procedure for calculating temporary disability benefits, which was established for the period from April 1 to December 31, 2021 inclusive, has become permanent. Now the amount of sick leave, calculated as if the employee had been ill for a month, must always be compared with the minimum wage. Let us remind you that if the benefit turns out to be less, its amount will be calculated based on the minimum wage (2 Article 4, Part 4 Article 8 of the Law “On the Peculiarities of Calculating Benefits...” dated 04/01/2020 No. 104-FZ). Please note that in 2021 the minimum wage is 12,792 rubles.

Also see:

• “What percentage of salary should I pay for sick leave”;
• “What is the minimum wage for calculating sick leave?”

How to determine the maximum and minimum amount of sick leave, see the article “Maximum amount of sick leave in 2020 - 2021”.

Let's look at complex cases of calculating SS in questions and answers.

Question 1

Artemov A.Yu. provided 2 certificates of incapacity for work to the accounting department: the primary one and its continuation. At the time of the onset of the disease, the SS was 4 years 11 months, which corresponds to 60% of the payment from the average daily earnings. When the employee provided the 2nd sick leave, the SS increased to 5 years and 1 month, that is, 80%. How to calculate sick leave and SS in this case?

Answer. Since all bulletins relate to one insured event, the SS is determined on the date of its occurrence and is not subject to recalculation (FSS letter dated 08/18/2004 No. 02-18/11-5676). That is, in this situation, the length of service of 4 years 11 months is taken into account, and sick leave payment will be 60% of the average daily earnings.

Question 2

The employee's 3 children fell ill in turn. Treatment was carried out on an outpatient basis. She was given 1 sick leave for a period of 35 days. The employee's experience exceeds 8 years. How is the benefit calculated?

Answer: According to clause 1, part 3, art. 7 of the Law “On Compulsory Social Insurance...” dated December 29, 2006 No. 255-FZ, for outpatient treatment of a child, the child care allowance is calculated based on the mother’s length of service, that is, 60, 80 or 100% for the first 10 days and 50% for the next .

Since the employee’s three children fell ill, the first ten days of sick leave with pay based on length of service applies to each individual. In this case, 30 days are paid based on 100% (since the length of service exceeds 8 years) and 5 days based on 50%.

ConsultantPlus experts explained what risks an employer bears if it does not correctly calculate an employee’s length of service to pay for sick leave. If you do not have access to the K+ system, get a trial online access for free.

Self-calculation of sick leave payments

You can calculate sick pay yourself: The algorithm is as follows:

1. we summarize earnings for the last two years of work, but only those from which the employer made insurance contributions;
2. divide the result by 730 days;
3. multiply the number of days spent on sick leave by the result obtained in the second paragraph. This figure will be the amount due on sick leave.

Example:

Ivanov P.S. has 7 years of insurance experience. He was on sick leave for 14 working days. His salary for the last two years totaled: 20,000 rubles x 24 months = 480,000 rubles. Further:

480,000: 730 days = 657.53 rubles (average daily earnings) 657.53 rubles x 14 days = 9205.42 rubles However, P.S. Ivanov’s insurance experience 7 years, which means he is entitled to only 80% of the average daily wage as sick leave. Therefore, in the end he will receive 9,205.42 rubles x 80% = 7,364.33 rubles.

Key aspects

Work experience has an impact on several areas of a person’s life.
Much of this influence is directed at the moments when an employee needs to calculate sick pay. Payment may be provided for several reasons specified by law. State control over this area is reflected in the system of accruals. Therefore, they must be produced in strict accordance with legal norms, taking into account regulations that stipulate all standard situations.

But upon careful reading of the regulations, you can discover the procedure for action in non-standard situations.

Now, instead of length of service, the concept of insurance length of service has begun to be used, which takes into account only those periods of time when contributions to the Pension Fund were made for a person.

It is this government body that organizes information about payers, collects contributions and, if necessary, calculates benefits.

Important! The amount of payment due for time spent on sick leave depends on the person’s insurance coverage, so do not underestimate the importance of this indicator.

Part-time workers: procedure for paying sick leave

Part-timers are a headache for many accountants. Young specialists in accounting departments do not always know how to pay sick leave for this category of workers. This is not surprising: there are some subtleties here too.

For example, if a person is officially employed at several enterprises at once, when receiving sick leave at the clinic, he should notify the attending physician or registrar about this. In this case, he is entitled to as many sick leaves as the number of companies he works for. However, it is important to make a note about which of their positions is the main one , since this is where he can count on additional material support .

Important! If an employee officially works in different places for more than one year, then each employer is obliged to pay for his sick leave.

How long can sick leave last?

Sometimes extremely unpleasant situations for the employer occur when an employee immediately goes from one sick leave to another. A reasonable question arises: how many people can be on sick leave without violating the Labor Code of the Russian Federation? By law, this period is strictly regulated and is limited to 12 months. However, it should be noted that the attending physician can issue a certificate of incapacity for work only for half a month, a dentist for 10 days, and if the employee is on sick leave for more than 15 days, then its extension is possible only by the decision of a specially convened medical commission.

Important! If an employee’s illness or injury occurs while he is at work and performing work tasks, then the duration of sick leave in this case is not limited by law in any way. Such certificates of incapacity for work are paid 100% by the Social Insurance Fund.

As can be seen from the above information, calculating length of service for paying sick leave has its own nuances. To correctly calculate sick leave, only the employee’s insurance record should be taken into account, since it is he who determines the final amount of payment for temporary disability.

Normative base

Issues of accrual and application of insurance experience are regulated by several regulations:

1. Federal Law No. 400;
2. Law of the Russian Federation No. 4468-I;
3. Federal Law No. 255.

Download for viewing and printing:
Federal Law of December 28, 2013 No. 400-FZ “On Insurance Pensions”

Law of the Russian Federation of February 12, 1993 No. 4468-I “On pension provision for persons who served in military service, service in internal affairs bodies, the State Fire Service, authorities for control of the circulation of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances, institutions and bodies of the penal system , troops of the National Guard of the Russian Federation, and their families"

Federal Law of December 29, 2006 No. 255 “On compulsory social insurance in case of temporary disability and in connection with maternity”