Be careful not to wait until retirement to be interested in the amount of your pension. – GILE Michel
- A report from the Court of Auditors points to frequent errors in amounts for retirement pensions.
- These errors are linked in particular to the complexity of the files.
- The best way to avoid this pitfall is to regularly check your career records.
For the tens of millions of policyholders who depend on the general pension scheme, it’s time to take out the calculator. A report of the Court of Auditors published on May 18, in fact, reveals that errors in the amount of pensions are not uncommon at the Cnav (national old-age insurance fund).
“Between 2016 and 2020, the proportion of pension benefits affected by a financial error increased by almost half, from 11.5% to 16.4%” notes the document. In other words, almost one in six files examined by the Cnav (on an annual “targeted” sample of 9,300 pensions) contains an error. So what are the amounts involved? And how to correct the shooting? We will explain everything to you.
What do these errors represent on the total pensions paid?
According to the figures provided to 20 minutes by the Cnav, about 75% of errors are to the detriment of retirees, the rest (25% therefore) being to their advantage. The median amount * of these errors is 123 euros per year in 2020. That is 10 euros per month. Taking the fictitious case of a retired woman who would receive 1,145 euros per month, this represents 0.9% of the total paid.
A margin of error which may seem minimal, but which, multiplied by the number of cases and the duration of payment (21 years on average) can quickly represent significant amounts. According to the Court of Auditors, “if the errors that occurred in 2020 are not researched and corrected a posteriori, [elles] will have a cumulative financial impact of 1.6 billion euros ”.
How to check the amount of your pension?
“It’s extremely difficult,” says Valérie Batigne, director and founder of Sapiendo Retraite. You have to take precautions well before you actually retire, by regularly uploading your career statements. [disponibles sur le site de l’Assurance-retraite]. Because once the pension is settled, the statements are no longer accessible online ”.
It is therefore your responsibility to check, year after year, that your quarters of activity have been validated and that no period – for example a summer job – has been forgotten. Because at the time of your retirement, if you do not have the required number of quarters (between 165 and 172 depending on your year of birth), you will not be entitled to your entire pension.
“It is all the more important to check this information regularly as careers are no longer linear,” adds Thomas Gagniarre, accounting and financial director of the Cnav. Today we have many more employers, we can become an entrepreneur after having been an employee, we have fixed-term contracts … All this complexity will be found at the time of retirement. “
What are your remedies in the event of an error?
Until July 1, 2021, you must be over 55 years of age before you can report a possible problem to Pension Insurance. After this date, there will be no more age limit. “For us, it’s important to get everyone into the habit of checking that everything is ok,” continues Thomas Gagniarre. Everything that can be done before the retirement request will make the calculations as reliable as possible. It’s always easier to rectify a mistake as quickly as possible. “
Very important vigilance. Because when you retire, you will have only two months to dispute the amount of the pension that has been notified to you. Retirement is therefore being prepared now.
* The median amount means that 50% of injured retirees lose more than this amount, and 50% lose less.