If you’re a working Australian resident, you’re entitled to paid leave when you have a baby or adopt a child.

The Paid Parental Leave scheme is a government policy that sees new parents given paid time off to care for their new born or adoptive child. Arrangement can vary depending on when your child was born or entered your care.

For more information, visit: https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/parental-leave-pay

Services Australia pays your parental leave via your employer. Basically, you apply to Services Australia for parental leave payments when organising your leave from work and, once approved, they pay your employer who then passes the payment on to you.

All other leave and entitlements are to go through your employer.

For more information, visit: https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/parental-leave-pay

The current payment for Parental Leave Pay is $189.62 a day before tax, or $948.10 per 5 day week. This is based on the weekly rate of the national minimum wage.^[5]

Your super guarantee is set at 12% of your regular salary, and is a separate payment to your Parental Leave Pay.

Your employer can top up payments based on company policy and employee benefits. This is a separate arrangement to the Paid Parental Leave scheme.

For more information, visit: https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/parental-leave-pay

If you’re on the Paid Parental Leave scheme, your parental leave super payments will come directly via the ATO.

The money will be deposited directly into your super fund, so it’s imperative that you have your super details up to date when applying for the Paid Parental Leave scheme.

Around 6 million Aussies have insurance cover through their super.^[4] This can usually be income protection, total or permanent disability cover, or life insurance.  

You pay the premium for this insurance through your super, not out-of-pocket like with retail insurance.  

1. Spousal contributions: You contribute your own after-tax money directly into your partner’s super, and you may get a tax offset.^[S1]

2. Contribution splitting: You transfer up to 85% of your existing before-tax (concessional) super contributions to your partner, effectively ‘splitting’ your payment with them.^[S1]

Spousal contributions let you add money (via an after-tax contribution) to your spouse or de facto partner's super account, which can help them build their savings. If your spouse earns $40,000 or less per year, you may also be eligible for a tax offset of up to $540 when you contribute up to $3,000 to their super.

This can be a smart way to boost your partner's super while also getting a tax benefit for yourself.^[S1]

Contribution splitting lets you transfer up to 85% of your before-tax (concessional) super contributions, for example salary sacrifice or your employer contributions, to your spouse or de facto partner's super.^[S1]

This can help balance super between partners which is particularly useful if one person earns more or one of you have taken time out of work.

Insurance premiums will be waived for any amount of death, total and permanent disablement and/or income protection cover held at the time of application, in the nominated Future Saver account.

However, the monthly insurance administration fee is excluded from the insurance premium waiver and will continue to be deducted from your Future Saver account.

No, the insurance premium waiver can only be applied to one Future Saver account at any one time.

During the insurance premium waiver period, if you change your amount of insurance for the types of cover you held at the time of application, all your insurance premiums will continue to be waived for the remainder of the waiver period.

However, if you are granted a new type of cover during the waiver period, that you didn’t hold at the time of application, premiums for the new cover type will not be waived and will be deducted from your nominated Future Saver account.

No - the insurance premium waiver can’t be backdated, so you won’t be able to apply for the parental leave insurance premium waiver if your parental leaves has already ended.

Yes - during the insurance premium waiver period, your insurance cover is still there if you need it. To start a claim process, you can make a claim online or contact us.

Yes - it doesn’t matter how long your parental leave has been approved for, as long as your employer parental leave hasn’t ended you may still be eligible for apply for the parental leave insurance premium waiver.

Insurance premiums may only be waived for a maximum of 12 continuous months from the date your application is received and approved, regardless of your expected parental leave end date.