Pensioners

You have achieved and experienced a great deal in your life. Now you can enjoy this new phase of your life to the fullest. Your SBK will support you in all matters relating to health in retirement.

You can apply for a pension from the German Pension Insurance Fund. Once the German Pension Insurance Fund has reviewed your application, it will forward it to us. This allows us to check your current health and long-term care insurance coverage and report this information to the German Pension Insurance Fund. If you were already insured with SBK before you retired, nothing will change for you. 

In addition, a flat rate of three years is taken into account for each child in the previous insurance period. The prerequisite for this is that the children were born by the date of the pension application and are biological children, adopted children, stepchildren or foster children.

If the above conditions do not apply to you, you can take out voluntary insurance with us. Please contact us for more information.

As a retiree, you pay a health insurance contribution rate of 18.4%. This rate consists of the general contribution rate of 14.6% and an additional contribution rate of 3.8%.

You also pay the same contribution rate for long-term care insurance as other insured persons. The contribution rate for long-term care insurance is 3.6%. Depending on whether you have children and how many are under 25 years old, there may be a surcharge or reduction on the long-term care contribution rate. More information can be found on the Long-Term Care Insurance page.

Contributions for health and long-term care insurance are calculated based on your individual income. The following types of income are considered:

Contributions are calculated only up to the so-called contribution assessment ceiling, which is €5,812.50 per month.

For voluntarily insured retirees, there is a special minimum income threshold of €1,318.33 per month. Contributions are calculated at least based on this amount, even if your actual income is lower.

For the statutory pension, the pension insurance institution calculates the monthly health and long-term care insurance contributions itself and pays them directly to us. The paying agent for your company pension also calculates the contributions itself and transfers them directly to us, provided that the company pension is paid out as a monthly benefit. You do not need to worry about anything.

If your company pension was paid out as a lump sum or in instalments, you must pay the contributions yourself to us for ten years. If your company pension was paid out as a lump sum or in instalments, you pay the contributions to us yourself for ten years.

You also pay the contributions from income from self-employment yourself. You have two easy options to choose from:

You can simply pay your contributions by direct debit. To do this, you give us a direct debit authorisation in Meine SBK. We will then debit your contributions from your account on time. Alternatively, you can give us a direct debit authorisation via SEPA direct debit mandate.

SEPA direct debit mandate form

Or you can transfer your contributions yourself. Please note, however, that your contributions must be credited to our account by the 15th of the following month at the latest. For example, contributions for January are due by 15 February at the latest.

Please transfer your contributions to:

SBK Siemens-Betriebskrankenkasse
IBAN: DE58 7902 0076 0027 9131 99
BIC: HYVEDEMM455
UniCredit Bank GmbH

The pension insurance institution contributes half of the health insurance contribution from statutory pensions, with 7.3% of the general contribution rate and 1.9% of the additional contribution. If the additional contribution rate is increased, this will only affect pensions and monthly company pensions two months later.

The pension insurance institution does not contribute to contributions from foreign pensions, pension payments and income from self-employment.

In addition to statutory pensions, wages, income from self-employment and unemployment benefits, pension payments are also subject to contributions.

When concluding occupational pension agreements, many employers advertised that these pension payments would be contribution-free. In fact, due to changes in the law, this is no longer the case, which is why many pension recipients only find out that contributions are due when the benefits are paid out.

If a child's father, mother or both parents die, children, adolescents and young adults receive orphan's pensions, provided that the deceased parent paid into the statutory pension insurance scheme. However, the orphan's pension differs from the conventional pension in a number of respects; for example, there is no requirement to have paid contributions for a certain period of time beforehand.

Health insurance for pensioners is an important and complex topic. Please feel free to contact us, as this is the best way to clarify any questions you may have and obtain further details.

Detailed information on health insurance for pensioners can also be found on the website of the German Federal Pension Insurance Fund.