By offering a progressive employee benefit scheme, a company can underscore its social commitment and thus enhance its attractiveness as an employer. Self-employed people can also voluntarily join the insurance scheme set up for their employees. The Federal Law on Occupational Retirement, Survivors’ and Disability Pension Plans (LOB) requires employers to set up retirement benefit schemes for their employees and to insure them against disability and death.
The SME can select either a solution offering guaranteed benefits and 100% security that covers all risks, but also costs somewhat more, or a semi-autonomous solution with potentially higher returns and certain investment risks. In the latter case, the risks of death and disability are generally covered by an insurance company.
The benefits are specified in the regulations of each employee benefit institution/collective foundation. But remember: there are differences between schemes. Helvetia’s group foundations automatically include the following forms of supplementary cover:
Flexibility for the insured persons is also part of the benefits offered:
In the compulsory pension segment of the LOB, the upper limit for the insurable salary is set at three times the amount of the maximum single OASI pension. Any portion of the salary above that limit is not insured. This leads to a loss of income in old age and in the event of disability.
The following graph clearly shows how the benefits from the first and second pillars (OASI and LOB) fall in relation to the overall salary and how the pension shortfall grows ever larger as income rises.