Your Insurance Account

Everyone insured by Deutsche Rentenversicherung has an individual account. Your personal data is saved electronically using an organisational key and is available on request or when an application is made.

The organisational key used in pension insurance is the insurance number. This consists of the

• section number,
• your date of birth,
• the first initials of your name at birth,
• the serial number and
• the verification code.

The insurance number is normally assigned when the person first starts work and fundamentally never changes. The payments paid by an employer are registered under this number, for example, and contributions are registered from voluntarily insured persons or compulsorily insured self-employed persons. Your insurance account also includes your residential address, marital status and other periods and data important for your pension.

Contributions

The level of contribution that you have to pay depends on how high your gross income is as well as the set contribution rate of compulsory pension insurance. The so-called contribution assessment ceiling defines the upper limit. This ceiling and the contribution rate is set by the German Federal Government. The contribution rate is currently 18,6 %. Insured employees pay half of this; the other half is paid by their employer. Insured self-employed persons and voluntarily insured persons have to pay their entire contributions themselves. Voluntarily insured persons can choose between a minimum and a maximum contribution.

The respective funding agency also has to pay pension contributions to Deutsche Rentenversicherung for the sick, people receiving transition payments or unemployment benefit as well as people in care. Contributions are also paid for people who are voluntarily doing military service (Wehrdienst) or taking part in the German state voluntary service programme (Bundesfreiwilligendienst).

All earnings which are relevant to your contribution payments are saved by Deutsche Rentenversicherung and taken into account when calculating your pension. The more contributions you pay in, and the higher they are, the higher your final pension.

Account Clarification

You should clarify your account at an early stage in order to fill in any gaps such as times spent at school, college or university. Periods of occupational training, pregnancy (incl. Mutterschutz), when you were registered unfit for work or unemployed are also registered. After clarifying your account you will have a gap-free “curriculum vitae” in the German compulsory pension insurance system. The earlier you clarify your account, the more “precise” the results of your pension information will be and this forms the basis for your personal pension plan.

Pension Information

Deutsche Rentenversicherung sends every insured person of 27 years old or older information about their pension annually. It contains information on the current status of the amount of your regular old age pension already earned and the level of pension you may receive owing to reduction in earning capacity as well as your projected old age pension adjusted to the regular pension age. This pension information means you are regularly informed about your pension entitlement and are better able to organise your additional private pension plan.

Pension information

When you reach the age of 56, you receive expanded pension information every three years. This contains a calculation of the pension you would receive owning to full or partial reduction in earning capacity, your projected regular old age pension and projected pension for widows and widowers. In addition, this expanded pension information contains information on the personal and insurance-legal requirements for pension entitlement as well as the deductions that you must expect if you retire early.

Deutsche Fassung