Pensions: How to calculate if the check amount is right

The actuaries draw up the pension report card, trying to make us understand when the amount of the check can be considered sufficient and when instead it is too low and we have to worry - But the votes have also been given to health coverage: here's how to understand if the combination of pensions and healthcare is appropriate to our working career.

While we continue to discuss pension reform and share 100, actuaries literally do the sums.

There is often talk of minimum and maximum pensions, of inferior benefits and of "golden pensions", of checks that are too low to be able to make ends meet and of amounts so high as to even be (for certain categories) unjustified with respect to the job career.

However, retirees are almost never provided with the right tools to understand how much they should receive and above all when the pension allowance can be considered sufficient and how to calculate what is, or rather what where the right amount should be.

The actuaries have thought of filling this gap, who during their XII National Congress held in Rome dealt with this topic, trying to answer the question and drafting a real "retirement report card".

PENSIONS: WHEN THE AMOUNT IT'S ENOUGH

According to the actuaries, the amount of your pension can be considered sufficient when the pension allowance received at the end of a working career reaches an amount between 50 and 70 per cent of the last salary, with coverage that includes both the basic pension and any supplementary allowance.

Taking a practical example, if the last salary amounted to 2.000 euros, the amount of the pension can be considered adequate when an amount between 1.000 and 1.400 euros is received.

PENSIONS: WHEN THE AMOUNT OF THE ALLOWANCE IS INSUFFICIENT

Below the thresholds indicated above, actuaries distinguish two different categories:

full insufficiency: in this case the pension (basic plus any supplementary) does not exceed 30% of the final salary (practical example: with a salary of 2.000 euros, you receive less than 600 euros).
Almost enough: when the amount of the pension is between 30 and 50 per cent of the last salary. In figures: between 601 and 1.000 euros of checks on 2.000 euros of final salary.

PENSIONS: WHEN TO CONSIDER THE HIGH ALLOWANCE

Actuaries distinguish two other contexts, the rarest to tell the truth, namely those in which the amount of the pension allowance is higher than sufficient. We can consider ours fully adequate pension when the check is equal, in percentage terms, to 70-80% of the final salary (1.400-1.600 euros out of 2.000). With an amount above 80% of the last salary, the pension can be considered Great.

THE REPORT CARD OF THE ACTUARIES ON ITALIAN WELFARE

Using the same criteria used for pensions, the actuaries also "voted" the coverage levels of health funds, providing parameters that allow us to understand when our coverage is insufficient and when instead it can be considered excellent:

Insufficient: total absence of supplementary health coverage.
Almost enough: coverage of major interventions and major morbid events, but only for those who are still working, plus coverage of non-self-sufficiency (LTC-Long Term Care) for both active workers and pensioners.
Enough: coverage for major operations and major morbid events also extended to pensioners, such as LTC.
Fully sufficient: the coverage of hospitalizations is added to the services described above
Excellent: coverage for major operations and major morbid events also extended to pensioners, coverage of hospitalizations, coverage of advanced diagnostics, specialist visits and diagnostic analyses.

“Social security and assistance, guaranteed to citizens with the combination of pensions and basic healthcare more integrative forms, are a determining part of an integrated and enlarged welfare project, based on collaboration between the public, private and third sectors, which the actuaries presented at their XII Congress”, reads a note.