The meeting is over. Whatever you write next goes in the file.
Severance Negotiation Letter: the Template and What You Send After It
A severance negotiation letter is a short email you send after the meeting and before the deadline. It thanks HR for the agreement, confirms you are taking the review period, makes one or two numbered asks with a figure in each, and names a reply date that falls inside your window.
Put the counter in writing. HR forwards an email to whoever approves exceptions with your wording and your numbers still on it. A phone call reaches that person as someone else’s summary. Keep the letter near 200 words; a long one reads as distress and buries the asks in the middle.
The situation
Write the letter once you hold the agreement. Read past the payment clause. The release names the claims you give up, the covenants (non-compete, non-solicit, confidentiality, non-disparagement) govern what you can do next, and a clawback clause can take back a sign-on bonus. Every clause can be redrafted. Then price the package. Add up the weeks offered, unused leave, a pro-rated bonus and the employer’s health premiums, and work out how many months of your own costs that covers.
Choose one main ask and at most one more. Weeks of pay are the figure everyone prices, and in a reduction they are also the figure most often locked by formula, so put a number on them and expect the room to be elsewhere. Health coverage to a named month moves more readily, as does a separation date set after a vesting or bonus date, or an agreed reference. Each goes in as a number or a date. An approver can sign off on "twelve weeks". "A little more" gives them nowhere to start.
The exchange often runs to about four emails. You send the counter, follow any call with a recap, and put one narrower ask in writing if the answer is no. The fourth is the revised agreement you sign.
No US federal law requires severance pay, and most jobs are at-will, so the package is a contract term bought with your release. If you are 40 or older, the federal rules on waiving age-discrimination claims give you at least 21 days to consider an individual release and 45 days in a group layoff, then seven days to revoke after signing, which neither side can waive.
A UK settlement agreement waives statutory claims only if a relevant independent adviser has advised you on its terms: a qualified lawyer, a certified trade union official or an advice-centre worker, insured and independent of your employer. The Acas Code recommends at least 10 days to consider the agreement, as guidance rather than a statutory minimum. Acas says the employer should consider paying for that advice and is under no obligation to, so ask for a contribution.
Germany has no general legal right to an Abfindung. Half a gross monthly salary per year of service is commonly used as a starting point in settlement talks, and outcomes land well above and below it. Your position rests on a deadline. A claim against the dismissal must be filed within three weeks of receiving the written notice (§4 KSchG), and negotiating does not pause that clock, so have a lawyer confirm your date before the first letter goes out. An Aufhebungsvertrag signed in place of a dismissal normally triggers an unemployment-benefit Sperrzeit of up to 12 weeks.
India’s Labour Codes have been in force since 21 November 2025. Give each statutory item its own line so none of it disappears into a single severance figure: gratuity, notice pay under your appointment letter, and encashment of earned leave. Gratuity is payable after five years of continuous service, or after one year on a fixed-term contract, at last drawn monthly wages divided by 26, times 15, times completed years, capped at ₹20 lakh. Where allowances outside basic, dearness and retaining allowance exceed half of total pay, the excess counts towards those wages, lifting gratuity on a basic-light structure.
A severance agreement usually releases legal claims, so have an employment lawyer read it before you sign, and in the UK that review is the independent advice the law requires. An hour of their time is worth paying for. The letter below has the brackets left in; fill them and cut what does not apply.
Subject: Separation agreement of [date]: my response Dear [Name], Thank you for sending the separation agreement on [date]. I have read it and I am taking the review period it gives me. You will have my decision by [a date inside that period]. I would like to close this on good terms and without delay. I know packages in a reduction are set centrally, so I have kept my requests to two. 1. Severance of [number] weeks’ base salary, in place of the [number] weeks offered. I have been with [company] since [year] and led [team, product or account] through [specific result]. 2. [Employer-paid health coverage through [month and year]] or [vesting of the [number] shares scheduled for [date]] or [a separation date of [date], after my [year] bonus is paid]. I would also ask for two drafting changes: a. Section [number]: make the non-disparagement obligation mutual. b. Section [number]: [limit the non-compete to [named companies] for [number] months] or [remove the requirement to repay my [sign-on or relocation] bonus]. If these work for you, please send a revised agreement and I will review it promptly. I can talk on [day and time] or [day and time], and I will confirm anything we agree by email afterwards. I would be grateful for a reply by [date, inside your review period]. Kind regards, [Full name] [Personal email address] [Personal phone number]
Say this
- Recap after a call: "Thank you for your time today. To confirm what we agreed: you will check whether the severance can move to [number] weeks, and health coverage runs through [month]. Please tell me if I have misstated anything."
- Accepting with changes: "Once the revised agreement includes [first change] and [second change], I am ready to sign it. I will return it within [number] days of receiving it."
- Asking for more time: "I would like an employment lawyer to read the agreement before I respond. Could we move my response date to [date]? Please confirm that in writing."
- US group layoff, age 40 or over: "Please send the disclosure information required for group terminations: the decisional unit, the eligibility factors, the time limits, and the job titles and ages of the employees selected and not selected."
- UK: "I will be taking independent advice on the agreement before I sign, as the agreement requires. Would the company contribute [amount] towards the adviser’s fee?"
- India: "Please show gratuity, notice pay for the [number]-day notice period in my appointment letter, and encashment of [number] days of earned leave as separate lines in the full and final settlement."
How it sounds
HR replies to your letter within the hour.
Why this works: Agreeing costs nothing, and announcing the recap in advance makes it routine. Two people leave a call with two memories of it, so the version written down that afternoon becomes the draft.
US. You are 58, and the agreement gives you 45 days to consider it.
Why this works: Federal rules allow an early signature only where it was not induced by a threat to withdraw or change the offer before the period ends (29 CFR 1625.22). The company’s lawyers know that, and a calm reference to the period usually ends the Friday deadline.
US. HR answers your counter two days later.
Why this works: Narrow Down. The refusal covered one line of the agreement, so the reply drops to a single item on a different line and ties it to a signature. COBRA lets an employer charge you up to 102% of the full premium, so every covered month is real money.
What not to say
Write each email as though the company’s lawyer is the second reader, because sometimes they are.
Leave out legal threats a lawyer has not cleared. A letter that mentions a tribunal or a regulator moves your file from HR to counsel, and replies slow down from there. Do not write that the dismissal was discriminatory or unfair, even in passing. If you believe it was, take it to a lawyer and let the letter come from them. Your Plan B, a claim your lawyer rates or a job starting next month, sets the number you will accept. Keep it off the page, where it reads as a threat.
Admissions cost you the same way. A line like "I know the last two quarters were hard" sits in the file and weakens the case that your tenure earned the weeks.
Do not write "I accept" in any form, including "I accept, subject to" and "agreed in principle". Acceptance belongs to a revised agreement that exists. Cut any sentence that hands back review time, such as "I can sign this week if you move on the weeks".
In Germany, do not let an exchange of letters carry you past the three-week filing deadline. Once it passes, the claim that gave your letter its weight is gone. In India, do not claim statutory retrenchment compensation unless you are a "worker" under the law. Anyone employed mainly in a managerial or administrative capacity is excluded whatever the salary, and so are supervisors drawing more than ₹18,000 a month in Code-defined wages.
Anger goes last, however much of it is earned. The person reading your email rarely made the decision, and they choose how hard to push your request upstairs. Write the furious draft if it helps. Delete it before you add a recipient.
Try it against someone who pushes back
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Common mistakes
- Sending a wish list. Eight asks let HR grant the cheapest one and treat the other seven as answered. Two numbered asks get two answers.
- Asking for "more flexibility" without a figure. One extra week answers it.
- Sending it from your work account. Access can end without warning, and every attachment on the thread goes with it. Use a personal address and keep your own copy.
- Treating "we can do that" on a call as done. A term exists when it is in the redrafted agreement. Send the recap the same day, then read the revised draft against the first to check that nothing else moved.
Questions people ask
Should I negotiate severance by email or phone?
Email, and take the call if HR asks for one. Whoever approves an exception will read your email and hear about the call second-hand. After any call, send a recap the same day; terms that live only in a conversation tend to shrink when the agreement is redrafted.
What should a severance counter letter include?
Five parts: thanks and the date you received the agreement, confirmation that you are using the review period, one or two requests with a figure or a date in each, any clause changes named by section number, and a reply-by date. Leave out legal claims, admissions and anything that sounds like acceptance. The template on this page follows that order.
Does countering restart the 21-day review period?
In the US, for employees 40 and over, it can. Under 29 CFR 1625.22, a material change to the final offer restarts the 21-day period (45 days in a group program), and a change that is not material leaves the clock running. Whether a given change is material is a lawyer’s question, so do not plan around a restart. Keep your reply-by date inside the original window and ask HR to confirm which period applies to the revised agreement. The seven-day revocation period after signing applies either way and cannot be waived.
What is the 70 rule for severance?
It is a plan term, and no statute contains it. Some employers’ separation or retirement plans grant enhanced benefits once your age plus your years of service reach 70. Read your plan document for the exact definition and the date it measures from. If you are close to the total, ask in your letter whether the separation date can move to the day you cross it.
Should a UK settlement counter say "without prejudice"?
UK settlement correspondence is often headed "without prejudice", and the heading alone creates no protection. That protection needs an existing dispute behind it. Separately, section 111A of the Employment Rights Act 1996 can cover pre-termination talks as protected conversations, and improper behaviour removes that cover. Ask your independent adviser whether either applies before you put anything in writing you would not want a tribunal to read.
Practice the real thing
The techniques this uses
Drill it until it’s a reflex
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