Life certificates: Facilitated process

The Swiss Compensation Office is using automatic exchange of information to improve the process of checking whether pensioners are still alive. This will simplify the procedure for the majority of Swiss nationals who draw an OASI/DI pension.

All insured persons who drew an OASI/DI benefit have had to submit a life certificate to the Swiss Compensation Office (SCO) at regular intervals in order to ensure their pension is paid without interruption. As of this year, this process, which is costly for both the SCO and the insured persons, will be simplified through the introduction of the automatic exchange of information between the various administrative bodies, including the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs FDFA.

Specifically, this means that Swiss nationals residing abroad who are duly registered with the Swiss embassy or consulate of their country of residence will no longer be asked to provide a life certificate, as this information will be transmitted directly from the Register of the Swiss Abroad to the SCO.

Swiss nationals who are not registered with the diplomatic or consular offices will still be asked to submit life certificates. They must fill in the document as usual and have it endorsed in order to prevent their pension from being stopped.

The new procedure will apply from 2022. Anyone who has not yet submitted their life certificate for 2021 will still to be required to do so.

However, the new simplified procedure does not affect the obligation to inform the SCO directly of any changes in personal status such as a change of address or marital status, etc.

At the beginning of 2022, the SCO also launched an information campaign which will be repeated throughout the year. Every insured person will be personally informed about this change at the time they were due to have received the relevant life certificate form.