The Swiss Compensation Office (SCO) and the Disability Insurance Office for people living abroad (OAIE), which are responsible for the payment of old-age and survivors’ insurance/disability pensions abroad, will now focus on digital interaction to facilitate the exchange of information with insured persons.
Picture: This man lives in a remote region of Mexico – and communicates with Swiss public authorities via encrypted email.
A certificate of life and marital status form is sent to all recipients of old-age and survivors’ insurance/disability pensions resident abroad every year. It has to be returned within 90 days to ensure uninterrupted pension payment. If the certificate does not arrive within that timeframe, payment of the pension is halted by the system.
However, insured persons resident abroad often have to contend with complex situations. Take for example an insured Mr A, who lives in a remote region of Mexico. His nearest post office is several hours away. The postal delivery of this person’s life certificate is delayed every year, and payment of his pension runs the risk of being interrupted. Consequently, in order to improve the quality of service for insured persons, as well as to facilitate the administrative procedures, the SCO and OAIE are planning to expand the range of information that can be exchanged digitally with the insured persons and with the social security institutions.
The SCO now offers a new service for sending and receiving encrypted emails. It will contact insured persons by this means as needed. Notifications of address changes and requests for information can now be sent confidentially via email.
At the moment most exchanges between social security institutions in European Union countries are paper-based. In the future, these will be replaced by electronic exchanges using the Electronic Exchange of Social Security Information network (EESSI).
The new systems for exchanging data do not remove insured persons’ obligation to report any changes in their situation: change of address, marital status, death, change in income, etc. (for more information, visit: www.ogy.de/renten).
In countries with very long post delivery times, the SCO can always rely on local Swiss representations to forward correspondence to insured persons. The SCO can also be reached directly via the internet portal www.cdc.admin.ch (or short link: www.ogy.de/SAK). Our teams of professionals will be happy to provide any further information you may need.
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