The pension that seafarers like to refer to as the “seaman´s pension“, is actually referred to as a bridging benefit. That is the technical term that we use at the Social Insurance for Seafarers.

If you are in receipt of a bridging benefit, then you can work on land. The earnings are not decisive in this regard. You are still entitled to the benefit from the Social Insurance for Seafarers. You have to inform us that you are employed and when it terminates. You are under an obligation to do so.

Why? A person who is no longer employed in seafaring initially has an entitlement to unemployment benefit I – subject to the condition that the seaman is not in a salaried employment or is self-employed on land and this employment is subject to a compulsory insurance. He is only entitled to a bridging benefit from the Social Insurance for Seafarers after this.

Should you become unemployed on land, it is possible that you could have another entitlement to unemployment benefit I. If this should be the case then the bridging benefits payment shall be suspended temporarily. If the unemployment benefit I should be lower than your bridging benefit, you shall be paid the difference.

Neither should you terminate your job on land, nor should you refuse to accept a job. If you should terminate your seafaring employment and be registered unemployed, you shall have an entitlement to unemployment benefit I for a period of two years; the Social Insurance for Seafarers only pays the bridging benefit after this. You are under an obligation to support the placement efforts made by the Agentur für Arbeit or you could otherwise be subjected to an ineligibility period, during which you shall not have an entitlement to social benefits. This also includes such as are paid by the Social Insurance for Seafarers. You should avoid being subjected to this financial disadvantage.

We are aware that you are under pressure of time so that we process applications for a bridging benefit as fast as possible. We check whether you meet the conditions for the benefit that has been applied for. How long the processing requires especially depends on how comprehensive the researches are and whether we have all of the information we require for your official decision. Keyword: clarification of the pension account. Please use our application forms for this.

Our tip: do not complete these forms on your own. Our specialists at the Deutsche Rentenversicherung Knappschaft-Bahn-See Information and Advice Centres would be pleased to support you and they are also very helpful. Please do not wait too long when it becomes apparent to you that you shall be leaving your work at sea or that you shall no longer be entitled to unemployment benefit I payments, so that you wish to apply for a bridging benefit.

When the benefit is paid out

You shall be in receipt of the benefit as from the date on which you file the application at the earliest. Please obtain advice as early as possible so that anything that is not clear with regard to your insurance account can be clarified without pressure of time.

Only the tax office can determine with a binding certainty whether the bridging benefit is taxable and if so, to what extent. We can therefore only provide you with the following information:

The tax offices deal with the bridging benefit as if it were what is referred to as a “curtailed private life annuity”. Your complete gross income is not taxed in this case. This depends on the period during which you are in receipt of the bridging benefit. It is normally the case that max. 10 percent of the bridging benefit is taxable (Section 55 of the Income Tax Implementing Ordinance).

The Social Insurance for Seafarers is basically a compulsory insurance. You can only be exempted from the payment of compulsory contributions if you are able to furnish proof that you shall no longer be able to acquire the required seafaring periods so that you can apply for a bridging benefit, this necessitating you filing an application before you can be exempted from the obligation to pay contributions.

You shall be exempted from the commencement of the employment – you then have to file the application within a deadline of two months. You shall otherwise only be exempted from paying contributions to the Social Insurance for Seafarers as from the date on which you have filed the application.

The contributions to the Social Insurance for Seafarers shall not even be reimbursed if you work until you are entitled to a full old-age pension. There are good reasons for this:

The Social Insurance for Seafarers only pays the bridging benefit until the earliest possible commencement of the old-age pension payments. Should you “retire” prematurely, your pension shall always be reduced. It is possible however that you could be entitled to a deduction compensation.

There are cases where a seaman is paid a full old-age pension despite the fact that he is not of statutory retirement age. He can then be entitled to the “benefit before reaching the statutory retirement age” for a period of two years.
This entitlement is checked upon application. We also check whether there is an entitlement to the “benefit after reaching the statutory retirement age".

You are insured in the Social Insurance for Seafarers if you work for a German shipping company under a foreign flag and work abroad.

One then refers to a temporary secondment on board a ship that is registered under a different flag, or on board a ship that sails under a foreign flag. You hereby also acquire the very important seafaring periods that are of relevance for the Social Insurance for Seafarers benefits.

If you are a German seaman who works for a foreign employer, you can still be insured by the Social Insurance for Seafarers subject to the condition that you sail on board a ship that is mainly owned by a German shipping company that has its legal domicile in Germany. The shipping company is then obliged to register you for health insurance, nursing care insurance, unemployment insurance and pensions insurance so that your seafaring durations on a ship that sails under a foreign flag are taken into account in connection with the bridging benefit.
The foreign shipping company can apply for a “voluntary application insurance“ on your behalf and this includes the Social Insurance for Seafarers.

Yes, you can. You should take into account however that you working at sea again can have different effects on the benefits paid by the Social Insurance for Seafarers. The bridging benefit is only paid to seamen who no longer work at sea.

We therefore do not pay you a bridging benefit or a possible reduction compensation during these sailing times.

You can basically be paid these benefits again after the end of these sailing times as long as the other conditions (still) exist.

The Social Insurance for Seafarers pays a benefit "before reaching the statutory retirement age“ and a benefit “after reaching the statutory retirement age”. Both of these benefits are paid continually for a duration of two years and you also have an entitlement to them if you temporarily work at sea.
You should obtain advice from us in good time under all circumstances.

A person who is in receipt of a pension and is compulsory insured with a statutory health insurance company, pays health insurance contributions for this.
You also pay health insurance and nursing care insurance contributions from the bridging benefit. The Social Insurance for Seafarers transfers the contributions to your health insurance company. You do not pay any “double contributions”. Your contribution is calculated with max. the upper income limit for health insurance and nursing care insurance purposes.

If you are in receipt of a bridging benefit and continue to be registered unemployed, this has financial advantages for you.

Why?

You are in receipt of a bridging benefit if you are not entitled to a full old-age pension or a full pension for a reduction in earnings capacity.

This is currently the “old-age pension for long-term insured persons“: you have then paid pension insurance contributions for 35 insurance years (or a waiting time of 420 months). These insurance years also take times into account during which you were unemployed, but was not in receipt of unemployment benefit I. Should you not already have the required waiting time, you can now obtain it by continuing to register unemployed.

Should it not be possible to furnish proof of the required 35 insurance years, then the bridging benefit shall be reduced. It therefore makes sense to continue to register unemployed – even if you are not in receipt of a bridging benefit.

Your pension entitlement can also be increased – even if only slightly -, if possible unemployment periods are taken into account.

Should you be in receipt of an old-age pension as a long-term insured person, this is normally reduced. In this case, the Social Insurance for Seafarers grants you a bridging benefit as reduction compensation in order to compensate you for your loss.

In individual cases, your birthday really does have an effect on the amount of your bridging benefit. The Social Insurance for Seafarers checks whether you meet the conditions for an old-age pension. It is possible that you shall be requested to file a pension application. Should you not be granted an old-age pension – no matter what the reason is -, the bridging benefit shall be reduced by the same amount by which the old-age pension would have been reduced had a payment been made (referred to as a reduction).

The Social Insurance for Seafarers has been offering a “benefit after reaching the statutory retirement age“ in addition to the bridging benefit since 1 January 2008. You have an entitlement to this benefit between the ages of 65 and 67 at the earliest and this for two years.

This benefit is restricted to half of the pension that is calculated for you when you reach the statutory retirement age. All of the benefits that the Social Insurance for Seafarers has granted you in the past (e.g. bridging benefit or a single payment) shall also be set off against your current benefits entitlement.
It is therefore possible that you have an entitlement to the "benefit after reaching the statutory retirement age“, but that this does not result in a payment being made. This is also a reason why the Social Insurance for Seafarers contributions are not reimbursed.

The “benefit before reaching retirement age“ is available from the Social Insurance for Seafarers for seamen such as yourself, who have worked for an especially long period of time and have paid contributions to the pensions insurance.

The condition for this is that your full old-age pension has not been reduced before you have gone from board before you have reached the statutory retirement age.

The Social Insurance for Seafarers pays this benefit for a period of two years. It is calculated on the basis of the full old-age pension that you are paid and corresponds to 50 percent of your full old-age pension.

The bridging benefit is an important source of income for most of the seafarers until they start to receive old-age pension payment.

You should request assistance from the experts from the Social Insurance for Seafarers.

Numerous other legal areas are to be taken into account in connection with the Social Insurance for Seafarers benefits. The various social insurance branches also have a role to play. This can rapidly result in the insured person being in a confusing situation.
In order to ensure that you do not suffer any disadvantages, you should obtain advice from the specialists in the Deutsche Rentenversicherung Knappschaft-Bahn-See Information and Advice Centres