Working Life > Income > Continuation Pay

Continuation Pay during Illness or Accidents

In cases of illness, work accidents or other accidents, employees and trainees are entitled to continued payment of salary from the employer up to 6 weeks, independent of their working hours. The respective regulations are in the “law of payment of remuneration on holidays and in cases of sickness”. It is required for entitlement that the employee has worked in the employment relationship for at least 4 weeks, before, without interruptions. What counts as inability to work as well is a prescribed stay in a rehab or prevention clinic. Prerequisites are the medical necessity and approval by a social insurer.

The maximum duration of continued payment at 100% of the salary is 6 weeks. For this, the inability must not be self-inflicted by the employee, i.e. in cases of drunkenness, breach of duty, violence, violation of accident prevention rules or neglect of doctors’ instructions, payment is not continued.

After the 6 weeks resp. 42 days with payment of the full salary by the employer, statutory health insurance pays a sickness allowance amounting to 70 % for 78 weeks maximum within 3 years for the same sickness.
After that, pension insurance resp. occupational disablement insurance pays. During the inability to work, social insurance contributions are deducted from those insurance benefits.

Legislation discerns cases of continued sickness (soon re-sickening with the same sickness) and repeated sickening (with different sicknesses). The difference: For continued sicknesses, the employer pays salary only once for the first 6 weeks. However, the same sickness again does not count as continued sickness anymore if in between there have been minimum 6 months of work and the beginning of the first sickness is minimum 12 months ago: in such cases, the salary continuation is initiated a second time. The salary to pay is calculated as the average of the previous 3 complete calendar months without any overtime hours, shares of profit or other bonuses or special payments. Capital-building payments, bonuses for night- weekend- or Holiday-work and commissions, in contrast, count as parts of income and are paid during sickness. When, during the period of an employee's sickness, employees in the company work short-time, then the continued salary is calculated with the short working hours.

Also for a regular Holiday, the salary of a normal work-day is paid, unless the employee is absent on a day immediately before or after the Holiday without a valid excuse.

Salary is not continued in cases of industrial action or strike, stoppage of work for weather reasons or insolvency of the company.

The law of employers’ compensations for expenses for continued payments of salary (AAG) regulates compensations for continued salaries that have been paid by employers in cases of employees' illness respective pregnancy. This is a pay-as-you-go process.

• Report unable to work to your employer immediately, either personally / by phone or in written. Also specify the expected duration. No telling of the kind of disease or symptoms is necessary, unless they necessitate measurements for protecting others. If you do not report unable to work in due time, the employer can claim compensation
• Report unable to work to your employer immediately, either personally / by phone or in written. Also specify the expected duration. No telling of the kind of disease or symptoms is necessary, unless they necessitate measurements for protecting others. If you do not report unable to work in due time, the employer can claim compensation
• If the employer does not pay the mandatory continued income for the first 6 weeks, you are entitled to claim sickness benefit from your health insurance
• The employee’s carelessness involved in causing the sickness does not rescind his/her entitlement to continued payment. For that, the employer has to explicate and prove the employee’s guilt
• If you sicken abroad, you still have your obligations of reporting and certifying your sickness. Besides your employer, also inform your health insurance
• Fulfil your obligations to report and to certify, otherwise the employer, in the case of recurrence, is entitled to first warn you (Abmahnung) and then dismiss you
• A medical estimate by medical service of public health insurances can be requested by the employer if the employee's constitution of working inability is to be doubted, which is the case if the employee is sick frequently or for a short duration or mostly at the beginning or end of the week or of vacation
• The employer's obligation of continued payment remains even if a third party has caused the working inability. In that case, however, the employer may sue for damages
• If you sicken during a freetime compensation for over-hours, no continuation is due. If you sicken during vacation, sickness days are not written-off against your vacation days