Colorado Family and Medical Leave Insurance

Overview

Colorado Family and Medical Leave Insurance (FAMLI) provides eligible employees with paid, job-protected leave for qualifying family, medical, and military exigency reasons. AbsenceSoft manages Colorado FAMLI using two separate core policies that work together: one for wage replacement and one for job protection.

For detailed legislative requirements, see our Legislative Guidance.

Policy Status Decisions

This policy is administered by the state unless the employer has an approved plan to administer it on their own.

💡 Best Practice: Follow the state's decision so the policy status matches the state's determination for benefits.

How to Use

Throughout this guidance, look for these labels to quickly identify what actions may be needed:

✅ Automatic: System handles this automatically, no action needed.

📝 Configuration Note: How the policy is set up in the platform.

💡 Best Practice: AbsenceSoft recommendation for optimal management.

❌ Manual Action or Tracking Required: User must complete this action or track elsewhere.

How AbsenceSoft Manages the Law

AbsenceSoft manages this law through 2 policies.

Policy Name - Colorado Family and Medical Leave Insurance - Paid Leave
Policy Code - CO-FAMLI-PL
Benefit Type - Paid Leave

Policy Name - Colorado Family and Medical Leave Insurance - Job Protection
Policy Code - CO-FAMLI-JP
Benefit Type - Job Protection

Administration Options

Colorado FAMLI can be administered through:

State Plan (default) - Administered through the Colorado FAMLI Division's state program.
Private Plan (fully insured or self-insured) - Requires custom policies

💡 Best Practice: Employers with a private plan should customize the existing policy to meet their state approved requirements and change the policy type to Company to show the policy is owned by the employer.

Employer Coverage Requirements

Refer to Legislative guidance for details.

Excluded Employers

❌ Manual Action or Tracking Required: Excluded employers are not covered under the law and may need to disable the policy in the platform to keep it from rendering. Discuss decisions with legal counsel for best approach.

Employee Eligibility

Refer to Legislative guidance for details.

CO-FAMLI-PL is a state paid leave program that may have eligibility criteria tied to wages/earnings that are not available in the platform. Employers should follow the state's determination for the wage replacement policy.

Job protection under CO-FAMLI-JP is determined by the employer and may be tied to the employee receiving wages under CO-FAMLI-PL.

💡 Best Practice: Follow the state's decision so the policy status matches the state's determination for eligibility.

❌ Manual Action or Tracking Required: Overrides in eligibility may be required if the state determines the employee has not met the eligibility requirements necessary for paid benefits.

📝 Configuration Note: For CO-FAMLI-JP length of service is used to measure if the employee has completed 180 days of service.

❌ Manual Action or Tracking Required: Length of service takes into account hire and rehire dates and may require eligibility overrides to ‘fail’ if the employee has recently been rehired and not met 180 days of service prior to the start of leave.

Eligibility Exceptions

Excluded Employees

❌ Manual Action or Tracking Required: Manually override eligibility from pass to fail for excluded employees.

Leave Entitlements and Duration

Refer to Legislative guidance for details.

Entitlement Overview

All absence reasons share a single combined entitlement of up to 12 work weeks, measured over a 12-month period rolling forward. Pregnancy with complications is an exception, which provides up to 16 weeks.

Adoption/Foster Care
Bonding
Domestic Violence
Employee Health Condition
Family Health Condition
Pregnancy/Maternity
- Complications = No or blank - Up to 12 weeks in a 12-month period rolling forward
- Complications = YES - up to 16 weeks in a 12-month period rolling forward
Qualifying Exigency
Safe Leave

✅ Automatic: AbsenceSoft automatically calculates and tracks entitlement for the shared 12-weeks (16 weeks when Medical Complications applies) across all Colorado FAMLI absence reasons.

📝 Configuration Note: The additional 4 weeks for Pregnancy/Maternity with medical complications is automatically applied when Medical Complications = Yes on the case.

Entitlement Rules

📝 Configuration Note: Adoption/Foster Care begins on the Adoption Date and must end within 12 months of the Adoption Date. Bonding and Pregnancy/Maternity must end within 12 months of the Delivery Date.

📝 Configuration Note: Domestic Violence and Safe Leave does not automatically assume the leave is for an employee. Individuals needing their own leave (not caring for someone else) under this absence reason should choose Self.

How Leave Can Be Taken

Refer to Legislative guidance for details.

Intermittent Leave Requirements

❌ Manual Action Required: Users are required to track manually/defer to the state’s confirmation whether the employee has accumulated 8 hours of leave within a 30-day period, since wage replacement is only payable once that threshold is met for intermittent leave.

Pay and Benefits

Refer to Legislative guidance for details.

Benefit Coordination

❌ Manual Action Required: No payment agreements are available in the platform. Employers wishing to enforce a coordination agreement with employer-paid time programs off will need to track that agreement outside of the platform or update any relevant communications/paperwork offerings.

📝 Configuration Note: AbsenceSoft's policy is configured to exclude work-related disabilities, however, this exclusion is not always automatic and instead situational. Configuring an exclusion on this policy prevents the policy from displaying.

❌ Manual Action or Tracking Required: Case managers should review any workers' compensation or unemployment situations individually and determine how to proceed based on the state's recommendation. If the case was opened with the ‘work-related’ option checked - case managers will need to open a new case without checking that option to pull the policy on.

Interaction with other Policies

Refer to Legislative guidance for details.

📝 Configuration Note: CO-FAMLI-PL and CO-FAMLI-JP are configured to run non-concurrently with the Colorado FAMLI Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) policies (CO-FAMLI-NICU-PL, CO-FAMLI-NICU-JP), since NICU care draws from a separate additional entitlement bank. See the Colorado FAMLI NICU guidance for details on that add-on benefit.

❌ Manual Action or Tracking Required: If conflicting policies are eligible on a case, leave managers must adjudicate so there are no overlapping approved date ranges, or deny one or both policies.

Required Paperwork/Communication

Refer to Legislative guidance for details.

📝 Configuration Note: AbsenceSoft provides core paperwork for CO-FAMLI through the CO FAMLI Program Notice paperwork/attachment. Paperwork is configured to be sent as part of the Employee Eligibility packet. Employers with private plans may have different requirements causing the need for a custom paperwork attachment be created with employer specific details.

CO-FAMLI certification forms are not available in the platform and are made available to the employee through the Colorado FAMLI Division program’s online portal.

❌ Manual Action or Tracking Required: Updates to existing paperwork items can occur. When updates happen, they are automatically applied to paperwork unless the client has customized. Clients with customizations on the relevant paperwork will need to review to determine how to adopt the new paperwork and apply any new customizations to the updated paperwork manually.

Managing In-Flight Cases

Colorado's State Average Weekly Wage (SAWW) changes each July impacting benefit amounts for cases that are opened within the July timeframe. Per the Colorado FAMLI Division, active claimants whose weekly benefit amount increases as a result of the new SAWW receive a notification through My FAMLI+ that their benefit has been redetermined. See Payroll Calculations section below for details.

❌ Manual Action or Tracking Required: For CO-FAMLI-NICU-PL cases open within a July timeframe should review any weekly benefit amount redetermination notice issued by the state through My FAMLI+ and update the case's benefit amount in AbsenceSoft to match the state's redetermined amount.

💡 Best Practice: Proactively confirm with claimants whether they have received a redetermination notice for weeks paid within the July timeframe, since the increased SAWW may raise their weekly benefit amount.

Payroll Calculations

This policy uses a Base Wage Calculation Method developed from information published by the state of Colorado. It aims to closely replicate the calculations performed by the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment (CDLE), Division of Family and Medical Leave Insurance.

Pay History

Uses the 5 most-recent quarterly totals, with the most recent quarter removed.

📝 Configuration Note: Gross quarterly totals include all wages reported to the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment (CDLE), including base wages, overtime, bonuses, commissions, and tips. Annual bonuses are reported in the quarter paid; because Colorado uses the single highest remaining quarter, a large bonus in one quarter may increase the estimate.

Policy Configuration

A State Average Weekly Wage (SAWW) and a State Weekly Max are configured in the policy's Benefit Settings.

📝 Configuration Note: SAWW is $1,608.91 and the State Weekly Max is $1,448.02, effective July 1, 2026.

Colorado Base Wage Calculation Method Logic

Retrieve Pay History:
1. Retrieve the last five full quarters of pay history prior to the Leave Start Date. Remove the most recent quarter, leaving the oldest four.
Calculate the employee's Average Weekly Wage (AWW):
1. Identify the quarter with the highest total earnings among the remaining four.
2. Divide the highest quarterly earnings by 13 to determine the employee's Average Weekly Wage (AWW).
Calculate the Base Weekly Wage:
1. Retrieve the State Average Weekly Wage (SAWW) and state max from Benefit Settings within the Policy Configuration.
2. For the portion of AWW up to 50% of SAWW, apply the state benefit percent (90%): (SAWW x 0.50) x 0.90.
3. For the portion of AWW above 50% of SAWW, apply the state benefit percent (50%): (AWW - (SAWW x 0.50)) x 0.50.
4. Add the two values together to determine the estimated weekly benefit.
5. If the calculated benefit exceeds the state max, cap the result at the state max.
6. Return this as the Base Weekly Wage.

📝 Configuration Note: The value returned is an AbsenceSoft estimate based on the state's published formula. This estimate should be used for planning purposes only and confirmed against the official state determination before being treated as final.

Need Help?

For questions about policy configuration or case management, contact your AbsenceSoft support team or consult the Legislative Guidance for compliance details.