Contents page 1 — And all of a sudden, the insurance company keeps the Hand on page 2 — From the half post a lot of real operation would benefit pensioners On a page

Never read Ingrid Wulff will forget the Moment she gets 2015 Post by your health insurance. She tears up the Letter, and must swallow: The cashier calls for 12,000 euros. Due as contributions – both employee and employer share of the payment from an occupational pension. The Absurd: Wulff has not received any pension paid, but a capital life insurance, which had completed the single mother in 1988, to her son. From this insurance the native of Hamburg had received in the year 2015, the total amount of 59.000 Euro. The insurance company contends that the life insurance was a company pension. And on pensions, social security contributions since the introduction of the law on the modernisation of statutory health insurance (GMG) in 2004 due, in full, so employers and employees share together. Together with the contribution for nursing care insurance, Wulff pays, therefore, currently 18 percent.

“I thought it must be a bad joke,” recalled Wulff. A protest against the contribution decision. And marvels, a little later, not bad, as the insurance company explains that the decision was completely right. So Wulff takes an attorney, and complains against the decision before the social court. You lose. In fact, you must pay the full contributions to health and nursing care insurance on your insurance.

Wulff is not an isolated case. The Association of direct insurance injured estimated that at least 6.3 million people fall under the so-called double verb eitragung. In the 2015 established Association have organized more than 2,000 Affected, the between the had 1974 and 2004, a direct insurance, and according to current case-law of the health insurance companies asked to pay, even though you paid from your net salary in this type of investment contracts. The Problem with these contracts is that they have not been completed on the employer, often because it was technically not possible otherwise. So the employer was the policyholder. This circumstance alone sufficient to have a facility to declare the product as a company pension, for which full social security contributions due. So the Federal government decided it social court (BSG) in 2004 precipitated and 2008, confirmed the judgment (Az.: B 12 KR 6/08 R).

So it was with Ingrid Wulff, who worked for a large insurance group. A real company pension, your employer involved, had they been since 1974. With the insurance they wanted to be prepared in addition to private. The from a colleague-mediated product was attractive because it was favored for tax purposes. “And because it was in the case of withdrawal from social duties, after all, my employer has forwarded the net wage,” she says. For 26 years she paid only 170 of the D-Mark, and later, nearly 90 Euro a month.

As of 2004, in the media for the first Time about the social contributions for occupational pensions, it was reported, verified your contract of insurance. “There was nothing of pension. There was nothing about social security contributions,” she recalls.

Merkel wants to be treated a half-rate of contribution

Wulff and many others Affected will feel unfair: you have completed your insurance under other legal requirements, they say. “We assumed that we do not have to pay social security contributions. This is exactly why we have completed right insurance, and no pensions,” says Gerhard gravel Heuer, and the Chairman of the Association of direct insurance other victims. The Association asks that the duty should be abolished – and if the contribution already paid must be refunded.

For your claims, the retirees find currently, however, little understanding. Just recently, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has verb to the plans of the Federal Minister of health, Jens Spahn (both CDU), on the abolition of the double eitragung a clear rejection issued. Spahn had submitted a draft law from the 1. January 2020 would halve to health insurance contributions on pensions. A large part of the financing gap in the statutory funds, after all, three billion euros, should be financed according to the Spahns proposal, especially from tax agents. But it is not only Finance Minister, Olaf Scholz (SPD) rejected, the Chancellor will find that much to expensive, and refers to the coalition agreement: There is a contribution relief for company retirees and pensioners, nothing is agreed to.

gravel Heuer and his comrades-in-arms are mad about that. Could Spahn enforce but would also benefit the more than six million real operating pensioners. Most of them knew that they would have to pay contributions, also double, at the time of retirement. And most of them have paid into their pensions, just out of net wages. But the thing is still a bit more complex, because there are also pensioners and prospective operating pensioners (because many contracts are still running), the were caught by the full contribution of the load cold.