According to a recent report by the Court of Auditors, errors concerning the amount of retirement pensions are increasingly numerous. “1 out of 6 retirement benefits granted by the National Old Age Insurance Fund (CNAV) in 2020 to former employees is affected by a financial error (compared to 1 out of 9 in 2016) and the impact of these errors reached 1.9% of the amount of new services (compared to 0.9% of those recorded) “, underlines this jurisdiction. Is it possible to have such errors corrected? How to proceed?
Errors concerning the calculation of retirement pensions are unfortunately not uncommon. Errors in particular due to the increasing number of people reaching retirement age and which cause increased activity for pension funds, and increasingly complex career files.
These faults, which have an impact on the amount of pensions, relate more particularly to the failure (or incorrectly) to take into account "atypical" periods in a professional career such as periods of unemployment, sick leave, maternity leave, work abroad or military service. Errors are also regularly observed among those who have changed status during their working life (transition to the status of executive, self-employed, or vice versa, for example).
For each retiree, pensions are calculated by the pension funds based on information provided by their employer (public or private) depending on the situation, Pôle Emploi, the Health Insurance Fund, the Family Allowance Fund, etc.
This is why it is important to take the lead well before reaching retirement age and to check whether your career statement corresponds to reality.
A verification made possible thanks to the Individual Statement of Situation (RIS), also called "career statement", an informative document received every 5 years from the age of 35 by each person who has acquired pension rights which summarizes all rights in each of the mandatory basic and supplementary pension plans. This statement is also available for download in the personal space of each person who has opened an account on the Social Security Retirement Insurance website. It is also possible to request at any time the sending of his Individual statement of situation to his mandatory pension scheme.
Thanks to this RIS, you can check that all your quarters of activity have been taken into account and validated, and that no period of inactivity has been forgotten.
If you have taken the initiative, in particular by checking your Individual statement of situation, but that, despite everything, you notice an error in the calculation of your retirement pension when, at the time of retirement, you receive your "notification of retirement", an official document that justifies your retired status, you have the possibility of taking steps to correct these errors.
Retirees have the possibility of making claims and possibly recovering their damages for a period of 5 years, and anyone over 55 can report a problem to their pension funds. Please note:from 1 st July 2021, this age requirement will disappear.
The steps to be taken depend on the pension plan you are covered by, and they must be started quickly.
If you depend on the general pension scheme, you can first send a simple letter to your regional pension fund (Carsat). If you still do not agree with his answer or do not get one, you have two months to send a registered letter with acknowledgment of receipt to the Amicable Appeal Commission (CRA) for Pension Insurance.
Then, if your error does not seem to have been resolved, you also have the option of appealing to your Carsat mediator by contacting him within 6 months of your first complaint to your regional pension fund, using the form available on the Retirement Insurance website and supporting documents such as your social security number, your surname, first names, postal address and e-mail address, your initial letter of complaint, any response from your regional pension fund, the notification of your rights that you are contesting or/and the decision of the CRA if the latter has replied to you, as well as any document justifying the merits of your complaint.
If an error concerns your Agirc-Arrco supplementary retirement pension, you have 5 years to file a complaint.
In the event that the error you reported has not been resolved or the answers obtained do not suit you, you also have the possibility of seizing the Defender of Rights and, as a last resort, the tribunal de grande instance on which depends your place of residence.
Civil servants, whether tenured or not, can also challenge an error found in the calculation of their retirement pension. In this case, they must contact their respective pension service:the State Pensions Service (basic pension) and, for their supplementary pension, the Public Service Additional Pension Scheme (RAFP) in concerning the State civil service; the National Retirement Fund for Local Authority Agents (CNRACL) and the RAFP for territorial and hospital civil servants; Pension insurance and the Supplementary pension institution for non-tenured State and public authority employees (Ircantec) for contract employees.
