Starting Feb. 1, the Employee Services Leave team will begin processing leave claims under the university’s long-term and short-term disability plans.

The team was established when the University of Colorado’s self-funded Family and Medical Leave Insurance (FAMLI) program began in 2024. The team processes all FAMLI, FMLA, and parental leave requests — more than 2,900 FAMLI cases in 2024 — and will now process claims for covered leave under CU long-term disability or short-term disability policies.

This change is intended to help streamline leave request processing that falls outside sick leave and vacation leave policies. Overall, most functions of these programs will remain the same, the only change will be to direct employees to contact the leave team to begin a disability coverage claim.

For faculty and university staff, long-term disability coverage is automatically provided, and employees must enroll in and pay for short-term disability. For classified staff, CU automatically provides short-term disability, and employees must enroll in and pay for long-term disability.

Disability resources

Use the following resources if you or your employees have a question about short-term or long-term disability coverage and claims:

• Share the disability insurance webpage.
• Direct employees to contact Employee Services Benefits team for questions about disability plan enrollment or payroll deductions.
  • Email: benefits@cu.edu
  • Phone:
    • Local: 303-860-4200, option 3
    • Toll-free: 1-855-216-7740, option 3
    • Hours:
      • 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday – Thursday
      • 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday
• Direct employees to the leave team if they have questions about filing a claim or want to begin filing a claim on their coverage.
  • Email: leave@cu.edu
  • Phone: 303-860-4353