Nothing comes from nothing
(Ovid, 43 BC – 17 AD)
You know this quote. It sounds trivial, but it isn‘t. The preliminary medical examinination, the medical state exams and the specialist qualification are not for free. You have to do something for it with perseverance.
It is just the same with your old-age pension. It is primarily the result of the contributions you have made. The more contributions you pay and the higher these are, the higher your retirement pension will be. If you are obliged to pay contributions, we will send you information about the amount of your entitlement to an old-age pension every year. This enables you to track the development of your pension entitlement.
Non-contributory times don’t help. Assessment periods with small make little difference. We recommend you to avoid such periods as much as possible. Members paying low small contributions will receive a low pension being not enough to live on in retirement period. We do not have a minimum pension based on social motives. We think this is right, especially since the government does not grant us any subsidies.
In Schleswig-Holstein, physicians are 29 years old on average at the time they start paying their current contribution immediately after starting their career. This entry age is relatively high. Most workers in other professions start building their retirement savings at an earlier age. When calculating the pension we grant, neither school nor academic years are taken into account. For many of our members it is therefore important to catch up. We advise you to pay more than the mandatory contribution. We‘ll tell you how to commence!
Starting your medical profession later than other colleagues, you will in principle receive less pension or you will have to pay longer contributions in order to reach the same pension level. This can be avoided by making voluntary contributions that exceed the mandatory contribution. We would be happy to advise you!
Life rarely proceeds in a straight line. The professional life of many physicians is more changeable than in earlier times. A change of employers often leads to idle periods in between. The same applies to time-outs that are taken to start a family or to relax. During periods of unemployment you may be exempted from compulsory membership and thus from the obligation to pay contributions. However, we recommend you to continue your membership with subscription payments. Contact us about this issue!
Even in private sphere, there may be vicissitudes and even strokes of fate. Around every hundredth member becomes incapacitated during his or her employment period or dies after illness or accident. Our disability and survivors‘ pensions are higher, the more contributions are being made. On the other hand, they are significantly lower if there is neither a membership with us nor with another professional pension fund in Germany when the benefit event occurs. Anyone who moves abroad or to a completely different profession for some time or longer is therefore well advised to keep his or her membership with us.
About every third marriage in Germany ends up in divorce. The consequence of a divorce is usually a pension equalization in which the part of the pension entitlement acquired during the marriage time is split up and transferred to the other spouse. The legislature prescribes this for us too. By replenishing their contributions, our divorced members can mitigate the reduction in their pension or even avoid it entirely. We recommend this to you.
Conclusion:
Please act now for your pension in good time and permanently. We would be happy to advise you!