JustParent is, at the time of writing, the only insurance product of its kind in the UK, so we appreciate that it’s a new concept and it might need some explaining!

Lots of SMEs are in a battle for talent, and can lose out to companies with deeper pockets. Benefits are a huge part of the decision for candidates, but they don’t come cheap.

Parental leave pay is high on the agenda for many people, especially those in their 20s-40s, yet it’s pretty rare to find a business offering over a month or so fully paid paternity leave, for example.

One big reason for this is uncertainty.

If a business of 50 people knew that only 1 per year would go on parental leave, they might happily offer all their staff and future employees a generous benefit package. But they can’t be certain of this - what if 4 people have babies in the year? The costs could be enormous. Therefore they don’t risk giving a generous benefit.

This is where JustParent comes in. We work with you to define a parental leave benefit package, with insurance covering 100% of the basic salary of employees (over the excess) who go on parental leave.

This means you can:

Attract and retain the best talent with an incredible paid parental leave benefit,

Budget for the worst case cost much more accurately than before,

Help your team - a proper paycheck while caring for new family members should help reduce stress, making happier and better-motivated team members.

This is up to you.

Our policy can be customised to cover between 6-30 weeks for paternity leave, and 12-30 weeks for maternity leave.

Yes! The rules are slightly different for adoption leave and surrogates, but we will be covering them.

Yes! For qualifying pregnancies, if your employee’s child comes prematurely (before 37 weeks gestational age) and requires inpatient treatment (NICU or similar) from birth at a hospital, then we will cover up to the point at which the qualifying pregnancy’s gestational age would have been 37 weeks.

This means a pregnancy for which the start date (as determined and evidenced by medical experts) falls on or 12 weeks before the coverage start date and it has not already been reported to the employer at the time of entering into the insurance policy for the first time.

The excess is the amount you will pay before the insurance policy kicks in.

The following costs are not part of the excess: National Insurance Contributions, pension contributions, other benefits (such as private medical), bonuses, or annual leave / holiday allowance that employees may wish to take as part of their overall parental leave.

The excess is across the whole business (not per employee) and resets every year.

Above the excess, the insurance will cover 100% of the basic salary of employees who take qualifying parental leave.

The insurance will not cover National Insurance Contributions, pension contributions, other benefits (such as private medical), bonuses, or annual leave / holiday allowance that employees may wish to take as part of their overall parental leave.

Sometimes new parents don’t want to take the full amount of paid leave that they are offered. As soon as the employee returns to work, and is therefore no longer on parental leave, their salary is fully paid by the employer.

It is also possible for the parent to take their leave in chunks depending on the HR policy that you have in place. However, the leave must be taken within a year of the birth for this insurance product.

No. The JustParent product is there to help both employers and employees. We want to see parents be able to take time away from work to grow their families, without sacrificing their salary and livelihoods to do so. As part of the claims process, we will be checking that staff are paid their full salary (up to the cap of £150,000) while they are on parental leave.

For the avoidance of doubt, JustParent does not pay the employees — it pays the employer.