(a) Eligibility conditions. An employee who is not a qualified employee with respect to the benefit year in effect at the time of his or her application for benefits may be eligible for an “accelerated” benefit year if he or she meets all of the following conditions.

(1) The employee has 10 or more years of service, as defined in part 210 of this chapter, prior to the beginning of his or her current period of unemployment or sickness;

(2) The employee has satisfied the qualifying conditions as defined in §302.3 of this part with respect to the next succeeding benefit year;

(3) The employee's current period of unemployment or sickness includes at least 14 consecutive days of unemployment or 14 consecutive days of sickness; and

(4)

(i) If the applicant is claiming unemployment benefits, he or she did not voluntarily leave work without good cause or did not voluntarily retire, or

(ii) If the applicant is claiming sickness benefits, he or she has not attained age 65 or has not voluntarily retired.

(b) Beginning date of benefit year. An accelerated benefit year begins on the first day of the month during which the employee's period of 14 consecutive days of unemployment or 14 consecutive days of sickness begins. Thus, for example, if an eligible employee has 14 consecutive days of unemployment from May 29-June 11, his or her benefit year beginning date is May 1, that is, he or she does not have to wait until July 1 to begin receiving benefits. If such employee also had a claim for the period May 15 to May 28, such claim may then be compensable or may serve as the waiting period even though the claim did not consist of 14 days of unemployment. His or her benefit year ends June 30 of the following year.

(c) Effect of attaining age 65. If a benefit year begins early for the purpose of paying sickness benefits and the employee attains age 65 before July 1 of the general benefit year, sickness benefits may not be paid for any day from the day on which the employee attained age 65 up to and including June 30, but unemployment benefits may be paid in this interim period if the employee is otherwise eligible. Sickness benefits may be paid for days of sickness beginning July 1 or later. If a benefit year begins early for the purpose of paying unemployment benefits, attainment of age 65 will have no effect on the employee's rights to sickness benefits, other than extended sickness benefits, in the accelerated benefit year. An employee is deemed to attain age 65 on the day before his or her sixty-fifth birthday.