More and more policyholders who retire before the normal retirement age are paying voluntary contributions and thus avoid reduced pensions.
The number of people who pay voluntary contributions to compensate for later pension reductions has risen to around 35,000 in 2020, according to current data from the German pension insurance, which the German press agency in Berlin received on Tuesday.
In 2017, only 11,600 insured persons made use of this option.
In 2019 there were already 25,800.
The chairman of the representative assembly of the German Pension Insurance Association, Rüdiger Herrmann, called the contributions paid “a sign of the confidence of the contributors in the statutory pension”.
They also had a positive effect on the finances of the pension insurance, as Herrmann said at a meeting of representatives in Freiburg.
The corresponding income increased from 207 million euros in 2017 to 573 million euros in 2020.
With the flexible pension law from 2016, the possibility was created to fully or partially compensate for deductions from the age of 50 with a special payment.
If you want to retire before you reach the statutory retirement age, you normally have to accept a deduction of 0.3 percent for each month earlier.
Another possibility of the law is the additional earnings for pensioners with an early old-age pension of up to 6300 euros per year.
As a spokeswoman for the pension insurance explained, as a result of the corona pandemic, there is even an opportunity for additional income of up to 46,060 euros this year.
Alternatively, the pension can also be increased through voluntary contributions.
The law has also made it easier to work beyond the standard retirement age or to work in addition to the standard old-age pension.