Company pensions should be adjusted for inflation every three years.
But that is not always the case, and pensioners may have to claim their rights.
Berlin - Not only the statutory pensions are increasing due to inflation, company pensions are also being adjusted.
In mid-February, it became known: the company pensions at Germany's largest steel company, Thyssenkrupp Steel, rose by 14.25 percent.
For comparison: the inflation rate in Germany was 8.7 percent in February.
Every three years, employers actually have to review an adjustment of their benefits.
But not all company pensions increase regularly - the professional association of company pensioners also criticizes "loopholes" in the law.
Company pension with regular increases in inflation – but no rule without exception
Some larger companies offer their employees direct commitment company pension schemes.
The company undertakes to pay the retired employee a pension.
For this purpose, the company invests money for the employee.
The old-age provision is therefore regulated internally.
Other company pension schemes that run externally include direct insurance, provident funds, pension funds or the pension fund.
Actually, these company pension schemes should be regularly adjusted to inflation.
Because the company pension law provides: Employers must check the adjustment of the company pension every three years and adjust the current benefits "at their reasonable discretion" either to the net wages or to the consumer price index - if these have increased.
Alternatively, companies can also decide in advance to increase the pension by one percent annually, regardless of the actual level of inflation.
But no rule without exception.
In individual cases, these are intended for employers if “the employer explains the economic situation of the company to the pension recipient in writing, the pension recipient has not objected in writing within three calendar months of receipt of the notification and he has been informed of the legal consequences of not objecting within the time limit,” it says in §16 of the Company Pensions Act.
Except for the increase in inflation in the company pension law actually a loophole?
There is criticism of precisely this exception in the Company Pensions Act.
The registered association Fachverband der Betriebsrentner BRV, for example, complains that the law only stipulates an obligation to check instead of an obligation to adapt.
In addition, it offers "many exceptions and loopholes [...] that make it very easy for employers, pension funds and insurance companies to evade any possible adjustment and even the obligation to check the adjustment without any significant consequences," according to the BRV in November last year an open letter to Federal Labor Minister Hubertus Heil (SPD).
Those pensioners whose companies went bankrupt are particularly affected.
Although they continue to receive an occupational pension, the benefit is not regularly adjusted for inflation.
The BRV also criticizes the possibility for companies to justify non-adjustment with the company's economic situation.
"The possibilities of the pension recipient to check the truthfulness of the justification for a non-adjustment are more than limited if he is neither a lawyer nor a certified accountant and - if at all - has only limited access to the annual reports," the association of company pensioners continues.
Lawyer Volkan Ulukaya pointed out to Der
Spiegel
that the reasoning had to be about company-specific problems.
If companies were only to point out macroeconomic problems such as the corona crisis or the gas shortage, that would not be enough to reduce or cancel the pension increase, Ulukaya continued.
If there is no automatic increase in the company pension, Stiftung Warentest advises pensioners to request an adjustment from their former employer in writing.
Pensioners must therefore keep an eye on their company pension and its increase every three years and act if necessary
(bme)
.