The Role of Group Life Insurance for Occupational Pension Schemes

This study continues intermittent work by WIFO on projecting occupational pension schemes for Austria with an emphasise on group life insurance. The projection is based on old survey data from 2007 but applies the previous results to the new NACE 2008 classification. The changeover to NACE 2008 creates additional uncertainty for the projections. In 2010 about 65,000 firms offered occupational pension plans to their employees, corresponding to one quarter of all firms with at least one employee. Thus some 1.2 million persons or 34 percent of all persons in active dependent employment enjoyed a pension entitlement. At the same time about 150,000 beneficiaries received payments from an occupation pension, corresponding to 14.1 percent of pensioners in the public pension system for employees. Contributions amounted to 1.5 billion € or 1.1 percent of the compensation of employees. In 2010 a total of 1.9 billion € were paid to beneficiaries. Some 37.1 billion € of actuarial reserves covered pension obligations by firms, life insurers, and pension funds. In relation to the financial wealth of private households this corresponds to 7.3 percent.