2024. You are entitled to this money from ZUS. How much is the guaranteed payment, who will get it, how to arrange it

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People who retired in recent years paid almost all pension insurance contributions in the new system. This means that they had part of the insurance premium collected on the account and part on the sub-account. The latter either with the use of ZUS or not. Contributions to the subaccount are treated as private funds and are therefore subject to inheritance.

If a person who has an account and a pension sub-account with ZUS dies before submitting a pension application, the funds from the sub-account are paid in full. What happens when you start receiving your pension? It all depends on how long she has been receiving this pension from ZUS.

What is a guaranteed payment from ZUS?

Meanwhile, many people are still falsely convinced that inheritance of such money is only possible if the holder of such funds in ZUS has not started receiving a pension.

The belief is false because pension regulations provide for a kind of guarantee period for the inheritance of funds from the ZUS sub-account. It is three years. This means that if no more than three years have passed from the date of granting the first pension to the date of the retiree’s death, the part of the funds from the ZUS sub-account specified in the regulations is to go to the beneficiaries or heirs.

However, let us emphasize right away that these only concern pensions paid according to the new rules, called pensions upon reaching retirement age – i.e. for people born on January 1, 1949. Moreover, retirees who did not receive a funded pension before ZUS established the target pension from the Social Insurance Fund.

Persons born on or after January 1, 1949 have the right to transfer part of their pension insurance contributions to OFE

Subaccount in ZUS: everything you need to know

Persons born on or after January 1, 1949 have the right to contribute part of their pension insurance contributions under the so-called second pension pillar. A ZUS subaccount is a part of the insured person’s account kept with ZUS. The subaccount is kept for persons who are members of open pension funds (OFE) and for persons who did not decide to conclude an agreement with OFE after January 31, 2014.

However, when an OFE holder has less than 10 years until retirement – i.e. a woman reaches the age of 50 and a man reaches the age of 55 – as part of the so-called safety slider, money from the OFE is systematically transferred to the subaccount. Therefore, when such a person reaches the statutory retirement age, all funds from OFE are on the ZUS sub-account.

After submitting an application for a pension due to reaching retirement age – 60 years for women, 65 years for men, ZUS determines the amount of the target pension.

The amount of the pension from the Social Insurance Fund is the result of dividing the basis for its calculation by the average life expectancy determined for the age the senior reached on the day on which he submitted the application, according to the life expectancy table applicable on that day. He will be entitled to the pension in the converted amount from the month in which the application was submitted.

The basis for calculating the pension consists of:

• pension insurance contributions that have been recorded in an individual account at ZUS, taking into account their indexation,
• indexed initial capital,
• funds recorded on the sub-account at ZUS, taking into account their indexation.

What is the guaranteed payment: how does ZUS divide the money between relatives

It is this third “component” of the basis for calculating the pension that is the subject of the guaranteed payment – however, the right to the guaranteed payment is granted to the person or persons beneficiary when the death of the pensioner occurred within three years from the month in which ZUS paid the pension benefit for the first time.

How much is the guaranteed payment? According to the law, it is the difference between the amount of funds constituting the basis for calculating the target pension, recorded on the sub-account in ZUS, and the product of the number of full months that have passed from the beginning of the month in which the pension was first paid to the end of the month in which the death occurred and thirty-seventh part of the amount credited to this account.

To put it simply, 1/37 of this amount is subtracted from the value of the subaccount on the date of determining the target pension for each of the possible 36 months of receiving the pension. The rest is a guaranteed payment.

After deducting the tax, ZUS will transfer the guaranteed payment to the so-called beneficiaries. These are people indicated by the senior during his lifetime.

If the pensioner remained in community property with his or her spouse, he or she automatically becomes the beneficiary of the guaranteed payment and there is no need to submit an application indicating the spouse as the beneficiary. However, you can submit an application specifying someone other than your spouse.

However, if the pensioner was a single person and did not make such a disposition before his death, the guaranteed payment is due to his heirs – under general rules of inheritance.

In order to obtain a guaranteed payment, the eligible person or persons must submit a payment application to the Insurance Institution. There is a special form for this purpose – ZUS EWG-P.