EPFO Clarifies Weekends and Holidays Between Jobs Do Not Break Service for Insurance Claims

The Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) has clarified that weekends and holidays falling between an employee’s exit from one organisation and joining another will not be treated as a break in service for insurance claims.
The clarification, issued through a recent EPFO circular, is aimed at ensuring fair access to benefits under the Employees’ Deposit Linked Insurance (EDLI) Scheme. It provides clearer guidance on the definition of “continuous service” for calculating eligibility and payouts.
The move follows instances where EDLI claims were rejected or benefits were reduced due to ambiguity around what constituted a break in service. In several cases, employees were denied full EDLI benefits despite having completed more than 12 months of cumulative service across multiple organisations.
EPFO noted that some claims were affected because Saturdays and Sundays falling between the date of relief from one employer and the joining date at another were mistakenly counted as service gaps. This interpretation led to families being deprived of insurance benefits.
Under the revised clarification, Saturdays, Sundays, and other declared weekly holidays will not be considered a break in service. The same applies to national holidays, gazetted holidays, state holidays, and restricted holidays observed at either the previous or current workplace.
In practical terms, if an employee leaves a job on a Friday and joins a new organisation on the following Monday, the intervening weekend will not impact EDLI eligibility.
The clarification is expected to benefit employees and their families by reducing claim rejections and ensuring continuity of service is assessed fairly under the EDLI Scheme.
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