Maine Paid Family and Medical Leave Program Update

news_events

Published May 1st, 2026

Detected March 17th, 2026

Summary

Maine's Paid Family and Medical Leave (PFML) program will begin providing benefits on May 1, 2026. Employers participating in the state plan must ensure employees receive written notice about the program within 30 days of hire and configure their notification settings in the Aflac Employer Portal.

View original document View source feed page

What changed

The State of Maine has announced that its Paid Family and Medical Leave (PFML) program will commence benefits on May 1, 2026. For employers participating in the state plan, Aflac will administer claims, including eligibility determination, documentation review, benefit calculation, and communication. Employers are required to provide employees with written notice regarding PFML, using specific forms for either the public or private plan, within 30 days of hire. A pre-application process for the state plan is expected to begin in April 2026.

Employers should take immediate action to configure their notification settings in the Maine Paid Leave Contributions Portal to ensure they receive timely alerts from Aflac regarding employee claims or required actions. This proactive step will streamline the claims process. While the document does not specify penalties for non-compliance with these notice requirements, failure to comply with state labor laws can typically result in regulatory scrutiny and potential enforcement actions. Employers should familiarize themselves with the provided forms and the upcoming Aflac Employer Portal for claim status updates.

What to do next

Provide employees with written notice regarding PFML within 30 days of hire, using the appropriate form for public or private plans.
Log in to the Maine Paid Leave Contributions Portal and configure notification settings for Aflac claims and actions.
Familiarize employees with the PFML claims process administered by Aflac.

Source document (simplified)

Maine Paid Family and Medical Leave (PFML) is almost here

January 28, 2026

Maine Paid Family and Medical Leave (PFML) is almost here

Benefits for eligible family and medical leave will start May 1, 2026. For the state plan, the pre-application process is anticipated to start in April. If one of your employees needs to take PFML, they'll file a claim with Aflac, the states PFML claims administrator. You can give your employees the information they need about that process by using this form. Note that if you have an approved private plan substitution, your employees will follow a different process. You can use this form to tell them what they need to know. Whichever version of the form you use, you have to provide it to new employees within 30 days of hire. Providing it to existing employees too may cut down on confusion so you get fewer questions.

The rest of this update applies only to those participating in the state plan.

For the public plan, Aflac will do these things so you don't have to:

Determine whether employees are eligible for PFML and have time left to use.
Review documentation and confirm whether employees are out of work for a covered reason.
Calculate wage replacement benefits to pay out, when leave can be approved.
Send communications about claim processes and decisions. There will be an Aflac Employer Portal for you to log in to. You'll be able to see the status of any Maine PFML claims your employees submit and, sometimes, provide information Aflac needs as part of their review. We'll share more information about this soon.

In the meantime, there's one task you can do today that will make the process go more smoothly if any of your employees submits a Maine PFML application.

Aflac will send you a notification email if one of your employees requests Maine PFML, or if there's action you need to take. You get to decide where those notifications will go. Log in to the Maine Paid Leave Contributions Portal now and follow these instructions to designate your company's "Claim Contact."

What will happen if I dont do this?
If one of your employees applies for Maine PFML and you have not designated your company's Claim Contact, Aflac will send notifications to the email address your company used when you first registered for the Contributions Portal. We will also continue to send reminders about designating a Claim Contact, until our records show that youve entered one.

Next Steps Stay tuned for more information later this winter about how the rest of the process will work.