Are you not compulsorily insured and want to be secured in case of unexpected situations? Are you planning a maternity leave? Are you afraid of losing your job or do you want to improve your old age? Then voluntary insurance may be a suitable solution for you.
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Choose voluntary insurance
Why to opt for voluntarily insurance?
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Social insurance is compulsory public insurance, thanks to which citizens are insured against risky life situations by paying contributions and receiving benefits. In practice, this means that if you are unable to work for various reasons (sickness, maternity leave, etc.), lose your job or reach pensionable age, you will be provided with social benefits to help cover the period without income. If you are employed, contributions for this insurance are paid by your employer from your gross salary, in certain cases the State does so (for example during maternity leave), but there are periods when no one pays for your insurance and then it is good to know about the possibility of paying for insurance voluntarily. The period of voluntary insurance, when you pay your insurance premium properly and on time, is evaluated as an insurance period when assessing your entitlement to social insurance benefits.
Who is voluntary insurance suitable for?
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- for the unemployed who are registered with Office of Labour, Social Affairs and Family in the register of job seekers,
- for students (but they must be 16 years old),
- school graduates who do not yet have a job,
- for women who are planning maternity leave and are not employed,
- for voluntarily unemployed,
- for SEPs (self-employed persons), whose income does not exceed the threshold established by law for the commencement of compulsory insurance,
- for all persons who did not have the obligation to pay compulsory social insurance,
- for women who receive parental allowance for their first child, but their employment ended during maternity or parental leave for their first child.
What do I have to meet if I want to be insured voluntarily?
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- 16 years of age,
- you must have permanent residence or a permit for permanent or temporary residence in the Slovak Republic.
What types of voluntary insurance are available to you?
You can choose from three types of insurance and their combinations.
Its purpose is to replace your income in the event of loss or reduction of income from gainful activity and to ensure income during periods of incapacity for work, pregnancy and maternity leave. These are benefits such as sickness benefit, nursing benefit, equalization benefit and maternity benefit.
ATTENTION: Do not confuse sickness insurance with health insurance. Health insurance premium is paid to the health insurance company and is used for health care purposes
Its purpose is to provide you with an income after you reach pensionable age or in the event of a decrease in your ability to perform a gainful activity (in case of poor health condition, etc.). You can receive a pension even if you are employed regularly. There are two subsystems within the pension insurance:
- old-age insurance – serves as a guarantee of income in old age and in case of death (this is old-age and early old-age pension, widow's, widower's and orphan's pension),
- invalidity insurance – serves in the event that your ability to work decreases due to an unfavourable health condition, also in the event of death (this is an invalidity pension, widow's, widower's and orphan's pension).
Its purpose is to replace your income during unemployment, when you are actively looking for work and you are registered in the register of jobseekers with the Office of Labour, Social Affairs and Family.
What insurance packages (combinations) are available and who are they suitable for?
You can choose one separate type of insurance or several insurances within five packages offered by the Social Insurance Agency. However, not all packages are for everyone.
- Who can be insured? Unemployed (e.g. student), SEP/SZČO, whose gross income did not exceed the stipulated limit and was not obligated to pay compulsory insurance.
- When choosing in the Calculator to calculate the insurance premium for a voluntarily insured person, it is type 1 (voluntarily sickness insured person, voluntarily pension insured person and voluntarily insured person in unemployment) and type 2 (voluntarily sickness insured person, voluntarily pension insured person and voluntarily insured person in unemployment who receives a service pension after reaching pensionable age).
- Who cannot be insured? Compulsorily insured (employee, SEP/SZČO, whose income has exceeded a stipulated limit and must pay compulsory insurance), also a person with an awarded old-age or early old-age pension, invalidity pension with a rate of decline in the ability to perform gainful activity by more than 70% (i.e. from issuing a decision on awarding a pension) and the recipient of any invalidity pension after reaching pensionable age.
- Who can be insured? Unemployed (e.g. student), SEP/SZČO, whose gross income did not exceed the stipulated limit and was not obligated to pay compulsory insurance. Voluntarily sickness and pension insured with the Social Insurance Agency can be a police officer or a professional soldier who are also covered by sickness insurance according to Act No. 328/2002 Coll. on the Social Security of Policemen and Soldiers (see below).
- When choosing in the Calculator to calculate the insurance premium for a voluntarily insured person, it is type 3 (voluntarily sickness insured person and voluntarily pension insured person) and type 4 (voluntarily sickness insured person and voluntarily pension insured person who receives a service pension after reaching pensionable age).
- Who cannot be insured? Compulsorily insured (employee, SEP/SZČO, whose income has exceeded a stipulated limit and must pay compulsory insurance), also a person with an awarded old-age or early old-age pension, invalidity pension with a rate of decline in the ability to perform gainful activity by more than 70% (i.e. from issuing a decision on awarding a pension) and the recipient of any invalidity pension after reaching the pensionable age (i.e. after determining the pensionable age by the Social Insurance Agency).
IMPORTANT INFORMATION: You can only be voluntarily sickness insured if you are also voluntarily pension insured.
- Who can be insured? Everyone except a person with an awarded early old age pension.
- When choosing in the Calculator to Calculate the Insurance Premium for a Voluntarily Insured Person, it is type 5 (voluntarily pension insured person) and type 6 (voluntarily pension insured person with an old age pension awarded or receiving a service pension after reaching pensionable age).
- Who cannot be insured? A person with an awarded early old age pension.
- Who can be insured? SEP/SZČO, who is compulsorily insured for sickness and compulsorily pension insured (even if the insurance has been interrupted due to the nursing of a close relative or due to entitlement to parental allowance) and at the same time does not perform out self-employment activity.
- When selecting in the Calculator to Calculate the Insurance Premium for a Voluntarily Insured Person, it is type 7 (a voluntarily insured unemployed person as a compulsorily insured self-employed person).
- Who cannot be insured? A person with an awarded old-age, early old-age or invalidity pension with a rate of decline in the ability to perform gainful activity by more than 70% (i.e. from the date of the decision on awarding the pension) and a recipient of any invalidity pension after reaching pensionable age (i.e. after determining the pensionable age by the Social Insurance Agency).
- When selecting in the Calculator to Calculate the Insurance Premium for a Voluntarily Insured Person, it is type 8 (a person voluntarily pension insured and at the same time a voluntarily insured in unemployment as a compulsorily insured self-employed person) and type 9 (a person voluntarily pension insured and at the same time a voluntarily insured person in unemployment as a compulsorily insured self-employed person who is a recipient of a service pension after reaching pensionable age).
- Who cannot be insured? Compulsorily sickness insured (employee), a person with an awarded old-age, early old-age or invalidity pension with a rate of decline in the ability to perform gainful activity by more than 70% (i.e. from the date of issuing the decision on awarding a pension) and a recipient of any invalidity pension after reaching pensionable age (i.e. after determining the pensionable age by the Social Insurance Agency).
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GOOD ADVICE: It is good to know that even if you are an employee, you may have your compulsory sickness insurance interrupted during the period when:
- you take a leave of absence without compensation according to a special regulation, or you take a leave of absence without the right to salary or employment income according to a special regulation, except for the employee's excused absence from work due to his participation in a strike,
- you are released for a long time from employment, civil service or employment for the performance of a public function, for the performance of a trade union function or for the performance of the function of a member of the employers’ council in accordance with a special regulation and you are not provided with wage compensation,
- you have an unexcused absence from work,
- you are in custody, serving a prison sentence or in detention,
- you take parental leave according to a special regulation. If the maternity benefit was granted to a man who is taking parental leave, the insurance is not interrupted, but continues (this is the case of exclusion of the obligation to pay insurance premiums).