Company pension – the rude awakening comes at the end.

No return, because the health insurance company collects a lot of money when it is paid out.

We all know the slogans of politics and private insurance companies: “The pension gap must be closed privately.” and “Those who do not make provisions in their youth must live in poverty in old age”. With such slogans the citizens are bombarded for years and many feel downright under pressure to invest now absolutely into the private age precaution.

Riester pension

The sale of Riester pensions boomed for years, until some smart people started to calculate what really comes out in the end. The result was sobering. The policyholder has to reach a very old age in order to get his paid-in money back at all. If he then also wants to earn a return, he must already have a life expectancy in the style of Jopi” Heesters.
The only one that guarantees a handsome return on the Riester pension is the insurance industry.

Company pension

It is the same with the company pension, which is still highly valued by many people.

Actually the facts sound at first also completely reasonable and comprehensible. The employee saves part of his gross salary each month or z.B. a special payment, such as a Christmas bonus or vacation allowance, into a direct insurance policy, thereby also saving taxes and social security contributions. Great.

But as soon as a financial investment with the argument “Steuersparen” is advertised, should immediately all alarm lights go on. So it is also with the company pension. The employee actually saves social security contributions and taxes for all these years, and the money goes directly into the direct insurance (hence the name). But at the latest when the pension becomes due, the health insurance company comes forward and wants its share of the cake. Many policyholders do not know this.

Small change for old age

Yield gone

An example illustrates this:

An employee takes out a direct insurance policy and saves a portion of his gross salary each month through his employer. Around 115 euros per month thus flow into the direct insurance scheme.
At the end there is a sum of 68.000 Euro on the account. A nice sum, with which one could arrange the retirement properly or also pay off the remainder of the house loan or a mortgage.
But stop! The complete sum we do not get. The health insurance fund collects just under 18 percent of the sum saved. This corresponds to the current level of the employee and employer contributions(!) the health and nursing care insurance. That makes a total of 12.240 Euro gone.
So the policyholder only gets 55.760 euros paid out by the direct insurance. The targeted return on investment gone.

Who counted now firmly on the complete sum, because on it bspw. the financing of its dwelling bases, which might get now arge problems thereby to pay off the remainder. As a pensioner, he probably does not need to hope for a new loan in this amount.

Full social security contributions

In addition, the policyholder has to pay the entire social security contributions alone, because the full 18 percent is deducted from the payout sum. Normally, the employer and the employee share these charges when paying a salary. Not so with direct insurance. The employer saves the social security contributions, because he has nothing to do with the payment of the direct insurance.
In addition the employer collects also still satte commissions of the insurance companies, because he locked for its employees collective contracts. In addition to the insurers, employers are also among the winners of the company pension scheme. Only the employee goes at the end again as losers of the place.

The subsequent obligation to pay contributions for payments from direct insurance policies was decided in 2004 across party lines and cast in the law for the modernization of the statutory health insurance. This also affects all old contracts concluded before 2004, because the law – of course – is retroactive.

Conclusion

The dream of the carefree life can be guaranteed thus neither with the Riester pension nor with the direct insurance. One must inform oneself as a policyholder before conclusion of such contracts already very exactly and concern oneself sufficiently with the conditions, if one does not want to put on it with the business.
All too great hopes of return, however, you can not make as a rule. You can already be happy if you get his deposited money out again in the end. But then you can invest your money right away in a different way or spend it wisely for yourself at a young age.