Paid or statutory family leave
If you take paid or statutory family leave – including maternity, paternity or adoption leave – you and your employer will carry on contributing to the RMPP while you’re off work. So, this period of time will count towards your benefits.
You’ll carry on building up benefits based on the pensionable pay you would have got if you hadn’t gone on paid or statutory family leave. And your contributions will be based on the basic pay you get while you’re off work.
Unpaid family leave
If you take unpaid family leave, you and your employer will stop contributing to the RMPP while you’re off work. So, this period of time won’t count towards your benefits.
However, if you want to make your time away from work count, you can make up for the contributions you missed when you come back to work for your employer. To do this, please contact the Pensions Service Centre, (contact details below). You’ll need to pay:
- the contributions you would have paid in
- the contributions your employer would have paid in for you.
Then, we’ll treat it as if you had taken paid or statutory family leave, instead of unpaid family leave, when we calculate your benefits.