Concerned About PF Claim Rejection After Employee's Death During Unpaid Leave?

Hi sir, I have a question regarding the Provident Fund. One of my employees passed away on 12/01/2022 after taking unpaid leave from 08/12/2021 to 10/01/2022. In the employee's PF account, we only contributed for the wage month of December 2021, with 24 non-contributing days in that month. The employee did not return to work after the one-month leave and unfortunately passed away on January 12th, 2022. Could there be a rejection of the PF claim by the family members in the event of a death claim?

Hi, If you have not removed the employee from the rolls of your company until his date of death, then his family will receive all PF benefits including EDLI. You can close his file and consider his date of death as the Last Working Day (LWD).

Respected V.M. Lakshminarayanan, Dear sir, I would like to inform you that my employee's last day of work was on 7th December 2021. From 8th December 2021 to 12th January 2022, he was on leave, and unfortunately, he passed away on 12th January 2022. We will only be paying (contributing) for the month of December 2021, specifically for the 7 working days. Additionally, we will file the Employee Contribution Record (ECR) in his name for the last wage month of December.

Thank you.

Hi, In order to ensure that the nominees receive PF benefits, you could have considered his non-working days as leave without wages. To receive EDLI benefits, the employee should be on the rolls and contributing to PF at the time of death.

You need to indicate his LWD as the day of death; otherwise, on the date of death, he is not a member of PF, and the bereaved family will be put to tremendous loss. I happened to deal with a similar matter, and it is taking more than two and a half years for the poor family to get the due benefits.

Ar-Deep,

Did you include the deceased's death date in any PF records or returns? You can still apply for the death benefit if this is not the case. You can give the EPFO an undertaking that the deceased was on authorized sick leave. Since there were no wages paid from the 8th of December 2021, in January 2022, our Consultant or HR Personnel who handles PF work entered the date of exit incorrectly. Without checking with HR or management, the Consultant clerk assumed the member had left the service and entered the date of leaving. We sincerely apologize for this unintentional human error and respectfully request that you please excuse us and consider the deceased DLIS claim for settlement, as well as extend your cooperation to assist the bereaved family in order to save them from the tremendous loss.

Sincerely yours,

for XYZ