Workers

You can apply to claim your portable long service leave entitlement after you have built up a total of seven years of continuous service with LeavePlus. Service built up with any of our interstate partner Schemes can be used along with the service you have built up with LeavePlus.

You must claim your long service leave entitlement through the state or territory in which your most recent 55 days of service was recorded.

If you have worked for the same employer for seven or more years but have only performed covered work for part of that time, you still qualify for Long Service Leave. LeavePlus will pay the entitlement accrued based on the portion of work performed that was construction work.

There is no portable long service leave entitlement available to claim from LeavePlus if your total record of continuous service is less than seven years.

Many different circumstances exist for workers which can affect the rate of pay in a Long Service Leave claim, including the type of claim you apply for, your current working situation, and your working history.

For detailed information on how your claim payment will be calculated according to your circumstances, visit the Claiming Long Service Leave page.

If you have built up a total of seven years of continuous service with LeavePlus, you will have a Long Service Leave entitlement which you can claim whenever you like.

That entitlement will not cancel or expire: it is there until such a time as you either claim the Long Service Leave from us (even if you have left the industry), or you pass away. In the case of the latter, any remaining entitlements can be paid out to your estate in a death benefit claim.

If you have a break in service, and have accrued an eligible entitlement before the break, that Long Service Leave entitlement is still there for you to claim at your request, even if you leave the industry again.

You can have breaks from recorded service for a maximum of up to four years. As long as your service record has gaps of no more than four years, you can build up on top of your previously accrued service credits as one continuous service record.

However, if you have a gap of more than four years, your previous service record will be made inactive and you will not be able to build up on top of what you already had, as the gap will be considered too large to be classed as continuous. Any eligible entitlements accrued from previous service blocks will still be claimable.

If you were a non-contributing subcontractor during a Break In Service period, you can provide LeavePlus with evidence that you were still in the industry at that time by sending us a copy of the taxable income page of your tax return for that year (showing your ABN, work type, and total financial income for that financial year). As long as this evidence shows you were contracting in Victoria during this time, with gaps of no more than four years between this evidence and your recorded service credits, then we can apply an Approved Break In Service to your account, whereby your service will be classed as one continuous block (provided the evidence is not prior to 1 Dec 1997).

Service as a subcontractor cannot be backdated – as contributions are optional for self-employed subcontractors, if you did not contribute at the time, you will have lost out on any possible service credits for that time.

The interstate reciprocal agreement means that if you work interstate, your time in the industry can still be counted towards long service leave. However, you must notify and register with the relevant long service leave scheme – contact details are located here.

It is also important that you notify LeavePlus so that our records note that you have long service leave credits elsewhere. Until you actually apply for long service leave, your record of service in the industry is kept separately in each State/Territory scheme. Please also notify interstate schemes and LeavePlus of any change of address.

Can I roll my interstate service together?

No. The record for any service accrued in a certain state can only be recorded with the state authority in which the work was performed i.e. LeavePlus can only keep record of your work done in Victoria – you cannot transfer any interstate record onto your record with us.

However, you can use all of your interstate service together, but only when you make a claim for Long Service Leave. Simply complete the interstate section of the claim form for your current host state, and any interstate entitlements can be paid out to you as part of your claim.

If you have received a written diagnosis from a medical specialist that you have a terminal illness and have less than twelve months to live, a Payment in Lieu can be paid to you if you have not already qualified for a long service leave entitlement. The following conditions must be met for a worker to submit an application:

• You have accrued at least 55 days of service with LeavePlus
• Your last service was accrued no more than four years prior to the date of application

To apply for a Payment in Lieu please email claims@leaveplus.com.au – a claims consultant will provide a form which you must complete and return to LeavePlus along with a copy of the signed medical diagnosis of terminal illness.

For those who have a terminal illness but had already qualified for a long service leave entitlement, you can still apply for long service leave through the normal online process as a ‘Left Industry’ claim and no medical document will be required to process your application.

If you pass away and have already accrued an eligible entitlement from continuous service in the industry, that entitlement can be paid out to your estate upon receipt of a certified copy of the death certificate.

If you pass away having not accrued an eligible entitlement from continuous service, a death benefit from accrued service may be paid out to your estate as long as the following conditions are met:

1. You have accrued at least 55 days of service with LeavePlus.
2. Your most recent service was accrued no more than four years prior to the date of death.

The death benefit entitlement can be paid out to your estate upon receipt of a certified copy of the death certificate. The payment is made via cheque to the estate of the deceased; the cheque cannot be made out to any other third party.

In some cases the liability for your Long Service Leave may lie partly with LeavePlus and partly with your employer. There are two main categories for shared liabilities:

Partially covered trades – where a worker performs a trade that is not covered for 100% of their working time, so they have less than seven years’ service with LeavePlus, but have been with the same employer for over seven continuous years.

Promoted out of the scheme – where a worker has had a certain amount of service recorded with LeavePlus that is less than seven years, but they have been with the same employer for seven continuous years.

In both of these cases you can claim Long Service Leave, but you must claim it directly through your employer – LeavePlus can then reimburse the employer for the equivalent service entitlement paid out to you in your claim by your employer.

Employer Reimbursement Process

Where an employer may have paid the full liability to a worker when claiming long service leave directly from their employer (typically when the worker has been with the same employer for more than 7 years), then there may be a liability which is to be reimbursed to the employer by LeavePlus, dependent on the service accrued by the worker in question.

Employers can submit an Employer Reimbursement claim in the LeavePlus member portal. Log in to LeavePlus and select My Claims from the main menu. Choose the worker from the list who the reimbursement claim relates to, then enter all the required information. The details you submit in your completed form enable LeavePlus to work out how much of the long service leave liability is to be reimbursed back to the employer.

Workers are eligible to start receiving service credits from the starting date of their first employer or after the date coverage commenced for your trade within the construction industry. There are two different calculations, dependent on when your service was performed:

Any service accrued prior to 1 July 2002 is based on an accrual of 0.866 weeks of LSL per full year of accrued service (equivalent to 13 weeks after 15 years’ service).

Service accrued after 1 July 2002 is based on an accrual of 1.3 weeks of LSL per full year of accrued service (equivalent to 13 weeks after 10 years’ service).