More work equals more retirement. Minister Elsa Fornero's new reform provides incentives for those who prolong their working activity. In Assoprevidenza's projections, for a forty-year-old today, retirement at 66 with a final gross annual salary of 30 euros would result in a replacement rate of 58,2%. If, on the other hand, the same worker retired at the age of 70, the replacement rate would rise to 74,2%. Projections that are valid starting from certain conditions: a constant career and a first registration with INPS at the age of 25 with a gross annual salary of 15 thousand euros. Of course, the more the final gross salary rises, the more the replacement rate decreases. Thus, maintaining the conditions already mentioned, a forty-year-old today who retires at the age of 70 and who boasts a final gross annual salary of 150 thousand euros, will obtain a replacement rate of 35% (27,5% if he retired at the age of 66 ). For those with a gross salary of 75 euros, the replacement rate would be 49,7% at 70 and 39,1% at 66.
“The contribution system is not said to be so negative from the point of view of results – he says Sergio Corbello, president of Assoprevidenza, the Italian Association for Complementary Welfare and Assistance – if I have continuity for 40 years, at the end of my career my pension treatment risks having a replacement rate close to 80%. With flat career my pension treatment calculated with the coefficients gives me an absolutely interesting replacement rate ". Which can even exceed 100% in cases of highly anticipated career (always with first INPS enrollment at 25 with 15 euro salary). Also in the case of those who are 40 today and have a final gross salary of 30 euros before retirement, the replacement rate would rise to 104,1%. Of course, one's personal projections will deviate from standard calculations the more I have an erratic or highly projected career.
“The point – continues Corbello – is whether on the contribution, given the conditions of continuity for individuals who have flat careers, the supplementary pension still has a purpose. For these realities it is good to have a complementary treatment but it should be a more flexible second pension with, for example, the revocability of the severance pay to supplementary pensions. We who have always said that we are against advances on supplementary pensions, say that all forms of adaptability are welcome because having brought forward the final goal has made greater flexibility necessary".
Already because the lengthening of the perspective of life and therefore of work opens up another urgent front: not all of us age in the same way. Corbello says: “Today we have to put ourselves in the perspective of systematically tackling another aspect: the elderly are not necessarily able to face old age in health, with the ability to self-manage: therefore coverage for the ability or incapacity of the elderly that goes beyond the pathological phenomena becomes important. One of the important reflection profiles that arise from the Fornero reform is the certification of the aging of the country which tells us that it is good to systematically introduce long-term care coverage”.
Long-term care programs are now offered by insurance companies as individual coverage who, in case of need, guarantee an annuity to meet their needs related to ageing. Then there are realities that have introduced coverage of this type at a contractual and collective level, such as banks and insurance companies. “Mutualism makes the mechanism work and it still does by attributing a rent. Long-term care coverage is a necessity and takes the form of annuities but this form may not necessarily be the right form. Instead, we aim to create services. One of the solutions are social cooperatives, a road that also opens up horizons of an employment nature”, notes Corbello.
The comparison may seem unfortunate, but the solution for the future, says Corbello, could be to make long-term care compulsory for everyone like motor liability insurance.
