Occupational insurance in Greece is entering a new era, with significant reinforcement of the second pillar of the country’s insurance system. This ambitious reform by the Ministry of Labor and Social Insurance is expected to be presented by the responsible minister, Niki Kerameus, at the upcoming Cabinet meeting on June 30, and aims to establish a modern and competitive framework for supplementary pension savings. According to sources, the draft bill includes provisions that will allow greater flexibility, strengthen protections, and make occupational insurance more attractive to both insured individuals and businesses across the country.
The three pillars of the insurance system
The first pillar of the insurance system remains the mandatory social insurance pillar. It includes mandatory insurance bodies, with e-EFKA and TEKA serving as the primary institutions. The second pillar is occupational insurance, which encompasses Occupational Insurance Funds and group professional pension insurance contracts that provide additional pension benefits. The third pillar relates to individual private insurance. According to government sources, a key priority remains the continuous strengthening of the first, mandatory pillar. At the same time, they note, the government is pursuing the development of additional, complementary pension coverage solutions to boost citizens’ disposable income during retirement. Within this context, the new draft bill focuses on strengthening the second pillar — namely, occupational insurance.
What the new bill proposes for Occupational Insurance Funds
The bill is structured around three core pillars:
1. Flexibility and operational simplification of Occupational Insurance Funds (TEA): The first major change is the introduction of Open TEAs, designed to facilitate access for smaller businesses and self-employed professionals to occupational insurance. This need is directly tied to the structure of the Greek economy, where the vast majority of businesses are small, with limited numbers of employees — making it difficult to establish a standalone Occupational Insurance Fund. With enhanced safeguards in place, Open TEAs will be able to accept new businesses, collective bodies, and trade unions without requiring prior regulatory approval from the Bank of Greece for each individual accession. Joining an Open TEA will not require meeting the elevated threshold of one hundred members — a requirement that otherwise remains in place for establishing a standard TEA. Open TEAs will operate as umbrella funds, facilitating the inclusion of smaller businesses and self-employed professionals in occupational insurance. In this way, all workers will be able to access occupational insurance coverage. The bill also introduces a simplification of TEA operations. Specifically, it separates the TEA’s articles of association from the individual pension programs it administers. Until now, any operational changes to a program required an amendment to the articles of association and a new approval process. Under the new framework, a TEA will be able to create or modify a program for an already participating sponsoring company through a Board of Directors decision, without amending its articles of association. Additionally, the bill provides for the appointment of external members to TEA Supervisory Boards, provided they possess adequate scientific expertise and credibility credentials.
2. A more attractive occupational insurance system for workers and businesses. How will this be achieved? First, by improving tax incentives — decoupling them from years of insurance coverage and instead linking them to the insured person’s age, in a simpler and more functional way. This change addresses practical difficulties that have arisen from tying benefits to years of insurance, making the framework easier to apply. As a result, insured individuals will find it easier to anticipate all parameters of their investment package and have a real-time picture of their investment at any given moment. Second, by establishing the option for TEAs to offer their members health programs, provided that the associated risk is fully covered by an insurance or reinsurance company, or by a healthcare provider through a fixed per capita cost contract. Finally, by creating a new occupational insurance product: the Group Insurance Product for Occupational Retirement (OAPES). OAPES will be issued by insurance companies and will provide equivalent protection of insured individuals’ rights as TEA programs, while operating under the strict supervision of the Bank of Greece.
3. Strengthening insured individuals’ protections: The central intervention for protecting insured individuals is the introduction of full portability of their rights, ensuring that a change in employment or professional status does not lead to the loss or weakening of accrued entitlements. The bill establishes the ability to transfer entire pension programs from TEA to TEA, from TEA to OAPES, from OAPES to TEA, and from OAPES to OAPES. Labor market mobility is also facilitated through the introduction of individual portability — a standardized, fee-free process for transferring a member’s vested pension rights to a new TEA or OAPES when their professional status changes. In this way, an employee who changes jobs can more easily transfer their rights to a new occupational insurance provider. The bill further establishes the option to remain in the occupational insurance scheme even in the event of losing one’s professional status, thereby protecting unemployed individuals. It also modernizes the investment framework for occupational insurance product providers by setting a maximum investment limit per product, based on the need to diversify the investment portfolio. Going forward, it will be possible to create an investment product tailored to the specific profile of the professional group it targets.
Key highlights of the bill
- Flexibility and operational simplification of Occupational Insurance Funds
- Enhanced safeguards and umbrella fund structures
- Universal access to occupational insurance for all workers
- Separation of articles of association from pension programs
- New tax incentives decoupled from years of insurance coverage
- Creation of a new group insurance product
- Full portability of workers’ pension rights
- Option to remain insured even upon loss of professional status
- Modernization of the investment framework for insurance product providers
Published in Parapolitika
