What to know about New Hampshire’s Paid Family Medical Leave program

New Hampshire is a first-in-the-nation kind of state, and its first-in-the-nation family medical insurance program has made its debut. Open enrollment for the New Hampshire Paid Family Medical Leave (NH PFML) insurance program began on December 1, 2022, for employers and on January 1, 2023, for individuals.

Employers can enroll at any time. The annual enrollment period for individual plans will end on March 2, 2023. Though the program is still in its infancy, Vermont recently announced plans to implement a similar paid leave insurance program. NH PFML is available to New Hampshire-based employers, and only for their employees who work in the state. Here are the particulars of New Hampshire’s program.

Program benefits and leave

NH PFML provides partial wage replacement to participating New Hampshire workers for “family and medical leave.” This term has been defined to mean:

• Birth, adoption, or foster placement of a child in the last 12 months;
• Serious health condition of a family member; and
• A qualifying exigency for foreign deployment in the armed services or to care for a service member with a serious condition or illness.

Curiously, the statute doesn’t define “family and medical leave” as including an employee’s own serious health condition for state employees, but it’s included in the statutory framework for PFML insurance plans available for purchase.