You or your employer can take out voluntary pension insurance

Your earnings-related pensions can be supplemented with voluntary pension insurance.

Your employer can take out either group pension insurance or individual pension insurance for you. You can also take out voluntary private pension insurance for yourself.

Voluntary pension insurance does not affect the amount of your earnings-related pension in any way (in other words, it does not reduce it).

You can supplement your statutory pensions by taking out voluntary private pension insurance or by setting up a long-term savings account.

Your spouse can also take out a voluntary private pension insurance for you.

If you are self-employed, you can also supplement your own statutory pensions with voluntary private pension insurance.

You can take out voluntary private pension insurance policies with life insurance companies. Long-term savings accounts are offered by authorised deposit-taking banks, fund management companies and investment firms.

In addition to the insurance terms and conditions, the valid regulations on pension saving affects the withdrawal of the private pension insurance savings.

You may receive tax benefits for your voluntary pension insurance contributions and the deposits into our long-term savings account. When you withdraw your pension savings, you have to pay tax on that pension income. The administrative charges also reduce your pension savings.

More information: Finnish Financial Supervisory Authority,  Finnish Financial Ombudsman Bureau, and Finnish Tax Administration

Your employer can take out supplementary pension insurance for you. There are several alternatives:

  1. The group pension insurance is collective. It requires that the employees included in the insurance are selected based on, for example, work task or professional position, or that the insurance covers all employees. The group pension insurance can be taken out as a supplementary pension insurance from a life insurance company or by establishing a supplementary pension fund or an industry-wide supplementary pension fund.
  2. The voluntary group pension insurance can also be based on the company’s own pension rule. In that case, it is not a pension insurance but a book reserve, where the employer is committed to paying pensions to a defined group of persons
  3. If the employer wants to target the supplementary pension to a particular individual, it must take out an individual pension insurance. Alternatively, the supplementary pension of an individual can be arranged as a book reserve.

The voluntary supplementary pension benefit can take the form of, for example, a supplementary pension of a certain amount or a reduced retirement age. The reduced retirement age may allow you to also receive your statutory earnings-related pension at the reduced retirement age.

The rules on supplementary pension or the insurance terms and conditions can state that you are entitled to the supplementary pension even if you change employers.

For detailed information on the supplementary pension arranged by your employer, turn to your employer or to the pension provider or insurance company with whom the insurance is taken out.

More information:  The Association of Pension Foundations (available only in Finnish), Finnish Financial Supervisory Authority, and Finnish Tax Administration

Supplementary pensions under the Employees’ Pensions Act (TEL supplementary pensions) were terminated on 31 December 2016.

A small number of employers arranged a registered voluntary TEL supplementary pension for its employees. Registered occupational pension schemes were closed from the beginning of 2001.

At the end of 2016, when the TEL supplementary pension insurance ended, approximately 56,800 persons had earned a TEL supplementary pension but had not yet retired. Approximately 10 per cent of them are estimated to retire each year.

If you are covered by a TEL supplementary pension, your TEL supplementary pension is listed on your pension record. You find information on the TEL supplementary pension on your pension record under the heading ”Lisäeläke” (= supplementary pension).

Other voluntary supplementary pensions, such as supplementary pensions offered by life insurance companies, are not included on your pension record.

TEL supplementary pension benefits

The TEL supplementary pension benefits may be either a supplementary pension amount or a reduced retirement age, or both. The supplementary amount may be paid as on old-age, disability or survivors’ pension, or a burial grant. If you were covered by the TEL supplementary pension scheme, you will be paid the pension when you start receiving your statutory pension. The reduced retirement age may allow you to also receive your statutory earnings-related pension at the reduced retirement age.

For more information on your TEL supplementary pension, contact your earnings-related pension provider.

Contact information of the pension providers