Flexible: This is how thoughtful pensioners improve their pension

The essentials in summary:

• If, as a pensioner, you care for a family member or another person in need of care, you can receive pension insurance contributions from the nursing care fund.
• This increases your pension entitlement.
• If you care for someone but have not yet reached normal retirement age and receive an early pension, you will usually receive pension insurance contributions automatically.
• If you are a carer and have reached normal retirement age, you will need to switch from a full pension to a partial pension.

Conditions for payment of contributions

The nursing care fund pays contributions for the following conditions pension insurance:

• You care for a person for at least 10 hours a week, spread over at least 2 days a week.
• The person needing care has at least care level 2.
• They do not take professional care of the person in their home environment.

The medical service checks whether the requirements are met and documents them in the nursing report.

What should I pay attention to if I still don’t receive a pension?

If you do not yet receive a pension as a carer, you are automatically insured under certain conditions and the care fund pays pension contributions. More information about what requirements you must meet to apply like caring relativesread this post.

I will receive an early retirement pension – what should I consider?

Do you already receive a pension, but have not yet reached the normal retirement age? So, despite receiving a pension, you will (again) be compulsorily insured as a carer in the statutory pension insurance. The prerequisite for this is, among other things, that you are registered as a caregiver in the medical service report and the nursing insurance fund.

Good to know: As a rule, contributions are paid automatically. However, to be safe, you should check with the care insurer of the person needing care. This way you can ensure that pension insurance contributions are actually paid. It is usually necessary to complete a “Questionnaire on the payment of contributions for non-employed carers” from the assistance fund. This allows the nursing care fund to determine the amount of the contribution.

I have reached normal retirement age and receive a pension – what should I do?

If you have reached normal retirement age and therefore receive a normal retirement pension, Nursing care insurance does not pay automatically Pension insurance contributions. However, you can waive part of your pension. This will make you eligible again as a “partial pensioner”.

Danger: If you also receive a company pension, you should first ask the provider whether it will affect the amount of your company pension if you receive a partial pension. If you’ve decided on a partial pension, there are two main steps you need to take into consideration:

1. First, you must submit a partial pension application to the pension insurer. This means you will have to temporarily give up part of your pension. Partial pension can be reduced to 99.99 percent. This means that you only have to give up 0.01 percent of your old-age pension to be entitled to contributions again, for example as a carer. German pension insurance has allowed this small reduction to be applied since February 2023.
2. Once you have submitted the application and received a decision, contact the care fund of the person needing care and inform them that you, as the carer, are receiving a partial pension. The best way to do this is to send notification from the pension insurer about the change to a partial pension to the nursing care fund.

They will then receive their pension increase on July 1st of the following year. If you give up part of your pension for another year, your pension will increase again the following year.