What is a Break-in-Service?

A Break-in-Service occurs when your Years of Participation are less than or equal to the number of consecutive Plan Years in which you were credited with less than 500 Covered Hours.  However, you can not incur a Break-in-Service until you have at least five (5) consecutive Plan Years with less than 500 Covered Hours.

If you incur a Break-in-Service before you become Vested or earn 16,000 Covered Hours, all of your Credited Service and Years of Participation stemming from work prior to such Break-in-Service will be completely forfeited.

If you incur a Break-in-Service after you become Vested or earn 16,000 Covered Hours, all of your Credited Service and Years of Participation stemming from work prior to such Break-in-Service can not be forfeited.  Furthermore, should you accumulate 16,000 Covered Hours, all previous Breaks-in-Service will be forgiven and you will be Vested, provided you had not previously drawn a Severance Benefit.

The following table illustrates how your Years of Participation are earned and how you might incur a Break-in-Service:

In this example, 1999 is not a Break-in-Service year as more than 500 Covered Hours were reported.

The Termination Date would be at the end of the month in 2000 when the last contributions for work performed were paid.

As the example indicates, with three (3) Years of Participation, a Break-in-Service would occur on April 1, 2005, following the five (5) consecutive Plan Years in which contributions of less than 500 Covered Hours were paid to the Fund.