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Paid sick leave

Unilever in the UK provides a discretionary company sick pay scheme which gives protection to employees who can't come to work through sickness or injury. The amount of paid sick leave that you can get depends on how long you have worked for Unilever. Check what you are entitled to with your HR People Partner.

While you are on paid sick leave you will continue to build up pension as normal.

Unpaid sick leave

If you are still sick and have used up all of your paid sick leave, you may have to take unpaid sick leave.

During unpaid sick leave, you will stop saving into the Retirement Savings Plan until you return to work.

When you return to work you will start saving into the Retirement Savings Plan in the same way that you were before.

Serious ill-health

If you become seriously ill and in Unilever’s opinion can no longer work, you may be able to take your pension earlier than age 55, or age 57 from 2028.

To do this, your condition must mean that in Unilever’s opinion:

You can no longer do your job or a job that’s similar
Your ability to do paid work is severely impaired, and
Your illness is permanent or means that you are permanently incapacitated

You may need to provide medical evidence to demonstrate this.

If you also pay for voluntary serious ill-health top-up cover

As well as meeting the criteria for a serious ill-health pension, your doctor must agree that you are no longer able to take on any work for any employer before you reach the age of 65.

If you meet the criteria, you'll get money from this benefit on top of what you've built up in your pot.

Contact your HR People Partner

If you can no longer work, contact your HR People Partner as soon as possible so that they can arrange for you to be assessed by occupational health.

The process of qualifying for serious-ill health retirement can take a long time.

What happens next

Your HR People Partner will refer you to occupational health to be assessed.

This can take some time as they will need to gather medical evidence from your doctor and meet to make a decision.

Once they have made a decision, they will tell the Unilever Pensions Team.

If they decide that you qualify, we will pay the pot you’ve built up so far.

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The aim of this website is to outline the benefits available from the Fund. It does not go into as much detail as the legal document governing the Unilever UK Pension Fund – its 'trust deed and rules'. If there are any differences between the trust deed and rules from time to time in force and this website, the trust deed and rules will apply. Some members’ benefits and options may be subject to certain special arrangements, which are not described on this website. Please check with the Unilever Pensions Team if any special arrangements apply to you.

Unilever UK Pension Fund Trustees Limited is the Trustee of the Fund. Throughout this website, ‘Trustees’ means the Directors of Unilever UK Pension Fund Trustees Limited.

This website does not give any rights to particular levels of contributions or benefits. Unilever reserves the right to end your employer’s participation in any section of the Fund and, with the Trustees’ agreement, to make changes to the Fund.

Anything in this site about legal or tax issues is based on the Trustees’ understanding of these issues at the current date and is a high-level guide only. Legal and tax issues may change from time to time. The Trustees cannot give tax advice in relation to the application of tax rules or legislation and it is each member’s responsibility to take advice on their own tax position.