Pension insurance; information and advice

The statutory pension scheme is a branch of social security. It covers the majority of the working population, whether as compulsory insurance, insurance subject to application, or voluntary insurance.

The pension scheme is funded by contributions from insured persons and employers, as well as by central government grants.

Essentially, the following are covered:

• Employees working for remuneration, as well as apprentices or persons otherwise employed for the purposes of their vocational training, and persons who are being trained for gainful employment in youth welfare facilities, vocational training centres or similar institutions for people with disabilities;
• Certain self-employed persons, e.g. teachers, nursery teachers and those working in nursing, maternity care, infant care or childcare who do not employ any staff subject to compulsory insurance in connection with their self-employed activity, artists and journalists, people running a home-based business, tradespeople registered in the craft trades register, and persons who, in connection with their self-employed activity, do not regularly employ any employees subject to compulsory insurance and who work on a permanent basis and essentially for a single client only;
• People who are undertaking voluntary military service, a voluntary social or environmental year, or the Federal Voluntary Service;
• People who are receiving income replacement benefits (e.g. sickness benefit, injury benefit, transitional allowance or unemployment benefit);
• Persons in respect of whom periods spent bringing up children are to be taken into account;
• Persons who, on a non-commercial basis, provide care for a person in need of care with at least care level 2, who is entitled to benefits under social or private long-term care insurance, for at least 10 hours per week, spread over at least two days a week on a regular basis, in that person’s home environment;
• Persons covered by compulsory insurance upon application (e.g. development aid workers, self-employed persons not covered by compulsory insurance by law);

Members of regulated liberal professions who are covered by a professional pension scheme (e.g. doctors, solicitors) may, upon application, be exempted from compulsory pension insurance. Exemption from compulsory pension insurance is also possible in the case of marginal employment (‘minijob’).

Certain groups of people (e.g. civil servants, judges) are exempt from compulsory insurance.

Anyone who is not compulsorily insured by law may, under certain conditions, apply to be covered by compulsory insurance or take out voluntary insurance for periods after reaching the age of 16

Essentially, the following benefits are provided: medical rehabilitation measures and support to facilitate participation in working life, aimed at maintaining, improving and restoring the ability to work, including financial assistance (e.g. transitional allowance, travel and transport costs, domestic help), pensions for insured persons and their surviving dependants, lump-sum pension payments and refunds of contributions, as well as contributions towards pensioners’ health insurance.

The statutory pension insurance providers provide information, offer advice, accept applications and grant the benefits provided for by law.
The insurance offices at the district authorities and independent cities, the local authorities and the insurance advisers provide information, offer advice and accept applications.

You can find out more by calling our freephone number 0800 1000 4800.