A bill aimed at strengthening occupational insurance, improving the operational framework, and creating incentives to attract participants to the second pillar of the insurance system is being put forward for discussion in the Cabinet Council today. The goal is to receive approval and be submitted to Parliament by the end of July, as the Mitsotakis government places supplementary insurance at the forefront of its agenda.
Ministry of Labour: the key interventions of the new bill to strengthen occupational insurance
This ambitious reform by the Ministry of Labour and Social Insurance will be presented by the responsible minister, Niki Kerameus, and Deputy Minister Anna Efthymiou. It aims to create a modern and competitive framework for supplementary pension savings. According to sources, the draft law includes provisions that will allow greater flexibility, strengthen protections, and make occupational insurance more attractive to both insured individuals and businesses across the country.
Today at 3:00 p.m., Minister Kerameus and Deputy Minister Efthymiou, along with the Secretary General of Social Insurance, Konstantinos Tsagaropoulos, will present the draft law at a press conference titled “Improving the occupational insurance framework: more opportunities for workers and businesses.” As the minister stated days ago, “In the new bill we will present to the Cabinet, our proposal reflects the belief that Occupational Insurance Funds must play a very significant role in our country in the years ahead.” She also highlighted that Greece continues to show particularly low penetration of occupational insurance, with the assets of voluntary Occupational Insurance Funds accounting for less than 1% of Greek GDP — compared to an average of approximately 50% in OECD countries with mature second-pillar systems, and as high as 120% of GDP in some nations.
The key interventions of the new bill
The first pillar of the insurance system remains the mandatory social insurance pillar, encompassing compulsory insurance bodies — primarily e-EFKA and TEKA. The second pillar is occupational insurance, which includes Occupational Insurance Funds and group occupational pension insurance contracts that provide additional pension benefits. The third pillar covers individual private insurance.
According to government sources, the continuous strengthening of the first, mandatory pillar remains a top priority. At the same time, the government is pursuing the development of additional, complementary pension coverage solutions to boost citizens’ available income during retirement. Within this context, the new draft law focuses on strengthening the second pillar — namely, occupational insurance.
The three core pillars of the reform
The bill is structured around three core axes:
1. Flexibility and streamlined operation of Occupational Insurance Funds (TEA): The first major change is the introduction of Open TEA funds, designed to facilitate access for small businesses and self-employed professionals to occupational insurance. This need is directly linked to the structure of the Greek economy, where a very large proportion of businesses are small enterprises with a limited number of employees, for whom establishing a standalone Occupational Insurance Fund is difficult. With enhanced safeguards, Open TEA funds 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 continues to apply for the establishment of a new TEA. Open TEA funds 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.
Within the same framework, the operation of TEA funds will also be simplified. Specifically, a separation will be introduced between a TEA’s articles of association and the individual pension programs it operates. 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 by a decision of the Board of Directors, without any amendment to its articles of association. Additionally, the option to appoint external members to TEA Supervisory Boards will be provided — individuals with sufficient scientific expertise and credibility credentials.
2. Making occupational insurance more attractive for workers and businesses. How will this be achieved? First, by improving tax incentives — decoupling them from years of insurance coverage and linking them instead to the insured person’s age, in a simpler and more functional manner. This change addresses practical difficulties that have arisen from tying benefits to years of insurance and makes the framework easier to apply. As a result, insured individuals will find it easier to plan all the parameters of their investment package and maintain a real-time picture of their investment at any given moment.
Second, by establishing the ability of TEA funds to offer their members health programs, provided that the associated risk is fully covered by an insurance or reinsurance company, or by a healthcare service provider through a fixed per-capita cost contract. Finally, by creating a new occupational insurance product: the Group Occupational Pension Insurance Product (OAPES). OAPES will be issued by insurance companies and will provide insured individuals with equivalent rights protection to TEA programs, while remaining under the strict supervision of the Bank of Greece.
3. Strengthening the protection of insured individuals: The central intervention for protecting insured individuals is the full portability of their rights, ensuring that a change of employment or professional status does not lead to the loss or erosion of vested rights. The transfer of entire pension programs will be made possible — from TEA to TEA, from TEA to OAPES, from OAPES to TEA, and from OAPES to OAPES.
Labour market mobility will also be facilitated through the introduction of individual portability. This provides for 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 will be able to transfer their rights to a new occupational insurance provider with greater ease.
Furthermore, the right to remain in occupational insurance will be established even in cases of loss of professional status, thereby protecting the unemployed. The investment framework for occupational insurance product providers will also be modernized through the setting of maximum investment limits per product, based on the need for investment portfolio diversification. It will now be possible to create an investment product tailored to the particular profile of the professional group it serves.
