The optional insurance gives the opportunity to the persons who were insured at IKA or any with IKA merged insurance funds, to continue their insurance by paying the relevant contribution, if for some reason they are not in a working relation any more.
The conditions that must be met in order to join an optional insurance are the following:
OLD INSURED
Definition: All individuals who have been mandatorily insured in any main insurance fund until 31.12.1992.
- Interruption of the insurance
- Fulfillment of minimum five hundred (500) working days within the previous five (5) years or three thousand (3.000) working days from the commencement date of the insurance.
- Absence of pensionable disability
- Existence of application for inclusion by the person concerned
The optional insurance may be done for one or more sectors from the ones the person concerned was insured at IKA while being in a dependent working relationship.
Optional insurance is carried out for 25 days of insurance per month and 300 per year and it is not possible to accede to this institution for a reduced number of days each year (100, 120 etc.), in order to fulfill the conditions for receiving sickness benefits by the fund.
The contributions which the insured person is obliged to pay per month, correspond to the sum of all employer and employee contributions and are calculated on the basis of the imputed wage of the insurance class within the remuneration received by the employee on the day of the employment interruption, and which shall be not less than 25 times the imputed wage of an unskilled worker (Article 10 of Law 2217/1994, 45/2007 Circular IKA and IKA Document A23 / 590/11 / 25.05.2012).
NEW INSURED
Definition: All individuals who have been insured in the mandatory insurance of any fund the first time from 01.01.1993.
- Fulfillment of 1.500 working days minimum, from which the 300 days within the last five years preceding the application
- Not to belong to another primary insurance fund
- Not to belong to any other insurance fund
The optional insurance may be done for one or more sectors of those of which the person concerned was insured at IKA while being in a dependent working relationship. The contributions which the insured person is obliged to pay per month, correspond to all employer and employee contributions and are calculated on the average of the salary of the last 12 months before the interruption (IKA Document A23 / 540 / 2.6.2006, A23 / 590 / 15.6.2007).
LONGTERM UNEMPLOYED
The long-term unemployed, insured at IKA, who in order to receive a full pension, miss up to five years, can optionally continue their insurance with payment of contributions from the public Employment Agency (OAED) (Article 10 of Law 2874/2000).
The beneficiaries of this category must meet the following conditions:
- They have to be unemployed for 12 continuous months
- The men have to have completed their 60th year of age and women their 55th year of age for the category “old insured”
The insured men for the heavy and unhealthy professions have to have completed their 55th year of age and the women their 50th year of age, while the new insured persons have to have completed their 60th year of age either if they are men or women.
- They should not have an insurable disability above 67%
The contributions are paid entirely by the specific organization "LAEK", a department of OAED. They are calculated based on the insurance class on which the unemployed was ranked on the day he / she submitted his / her application based on the earnings he / she received on the day he / she interrupted his / her work and cannot be of a lower class of the one corresponding to the wage of an unskilled worker.
In this arrangement there have also been included the dismissed persons of the age between 55 and 64 years, as long as they remain unemployed for at least three consecutive months (Article 66 of N.3996 / 2001 and Social Security Circular 96/2011).
NOTE: This article does not cover advisory, but only informational purposes, and cannot serve, as a basis for further actions, on the part of the reader. Reception of specialized advice is required.
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