Social security for family carers

Caring for a loved one at home can be a challenging and time-consuming task. For this reason, it is common for family carers to reduce their hours of employment or give up their jobs completely. 

Various options are available in Germany to provide financial support to family carers and others involved in caring for a care recipient in this situation and to recognize their contribution. In addition to the care allowance for care recipients and the respite care allowance that can be claimed when carers fall ill or need a vacation, long-term care insurance providers pay various social security benefits for carers.

For example, long-term care insurance covers the costs of contributions to pension and unemployment insurance. In addition, family carers have free statutory accident insurance cover while they are providing care.

In order to claim social security benefits, a person must be officially recognized as a carer as defined by long-term care insurance providers. The following prerequisites must be met:

• The care recipient is receiving care and support in their own home.
• The care recipient has a care grade of 2 or higher.
• The carer is not receiving payment in return for the care they provide. In other words, there is no employment relationship and the care is unpaid. If the carer receives financial recognition via the care allowance, the amount they receive must not exceed the amount of care allowance granted on the basis of the care recipient’s care grade.
• Care must be provided for at least 10 hours a week, spread over at least 2 days. In order to meet this minimum number of hours, a carer may provide care to more than one individual.

During the care assessment, the Medical Review Board (“Medizinischer Dienst”) or, for those with private insurance, Medicproof determine whether care is being provided for the minimum number of hours required.

Care recipients have the option of passing on part or all of their care allowance to a carer as financial recognition of the care provided. In order for the care provided to still be considered “unpaid” in this scenario, the carer must not receive any more than the total care allowance to which the care recipient is entitled. The amount of care allowance paid to a care recipient depends on their care grade.

Family/informal carers may be entitled to statutory pension insurance via the care recipient’s long-term care insurance while they are providing care. This is possible if, in addition to the prerequisites outlined above, the carer is not in paid employment for more than 30 hours per week.

In order for the long-term care insurance provider to pay contributions for the carer, the carer must also meet the following conditions: 

• The carer has not yet reached the normal age of retirement and is not in receipt of a full state retirement pension or any other form of provision for old age, such as a public service pension.
• The carer has already paid pension insurance contributions. Exception: Some carers have never had pension insurance but time they have spent caring for their children can be taken into account.

The amount of the contributions paid by long-term care insurance towards pension insurance depends, among other things, on the care recipient’s care grade and on the type of long-term care insurance benefit that is claimed (care allowance, non-cash care benefits, or a combination benefit). In addition, the amount of pension contribution paid differs between federal states in the east and west of Germany. However, this difference only amounts to a few cent.

If more than one person is involved in caring for a care recipient, the contribution is calculated on a pro-rata basis for each individual carer. If one carer provides care to more than one care recipient, the contributions are shared between the long-term care insurance funds of the individual care recipients. Specific details of the amount of contribution to be paid are available from the relevant long-term care insurance provider.

Example: If you are caring for a care recipient with a care grade of 2 for a period of one year without support from a care service, you can receive an increase of around 9.59 euros (western Germany) or 9.55 euros (eastern Germany) in your monthly pension. This example was calculated with the pension value for 2023. The increased pension entitlement has life-long validity.

The website of the German Pension Insurance Organization (“Deutsche Rentenversicherung”) offers a brochure (in German only) containing detailed information about pension insurance for carers. The questionnaire for the payment of social security benefits for informal carers mentioned above is also available from the German Pension Insurance Organization.

Subject to certain conditions, the care recipient’s long-term care insurance provider will pay unemployment insurance contributions for the carer for the entire period during which care is provided. 

This means that the carer remains covered by unemployment insurance even if they give up their employment in order to provide care to the care recipient. This also applies to people who were never in paid employment prior to their role as a carer. As a result, they can receive unemployment benefit and help with finding a job if they do not immediately find employment following their time as a carer. 

What conditions are attached to the payment of contributions?

In order for unemployment insurance contributions to be paid, the carer must have had unemployment insurance immediately before they took up their caring role. Contributions are also paid for people who were entitled to unemployment benefit or other earnings replacement benefits from unemployment insurance. These include transition benefit (“Übergangsgeld”), short-term working benefit (“Kurzarbeitergeld”), and unemployment benefit for employees of bankrupted companies (“Insolvenzgeld”).
In this context, “immediately” means that, before taking up their role as a carer, the individual had no unemployment insurance cover or was nor receiving any of these earnings replacement benefits for a maximum period of one month.
If a carer continues to receive unemployment benefit while acting as a carer, no unemployment insurance contributions will be paid for them during this time.

If the carer is already covered by unemployment insurance for other reasons, such as part-time work, the long-term care insurance fund will not pay for their contributions. 

Note: Since 1 January 2017, long-term care insurance providers have paid unemployment insurance contributions for family carers. Prior to that, family carers had the option of taking out unemployment insurance but had to pay the contributions themselves.

Detailed information about social security for carers in relation to unemployment insurance is available from the Federal Employment Agency (Bundesagentur für Arbeit).

Carers have statutory accident insurance while providing care to care recipients, without needing to pay accident insurance contributions. Accident insurance contributions are paid by local authorities, and carers aren’t required to make a special application for this purpose.

They are automatically covered by statutory accident insurance from the moment that they begin providing care as an officially recognized carer. 

The insurance cover applies both to care activities and to any domestic support they provide in the care recipient’s home. This includes, for example, preparing meals, tidying up, and cleaning. Accidents that occur when the carer is traveling directly to or from the care recipient’s home are covered as commuting accidents.

You will find more detailed information about accident insurance for carers on the consumer advice center website.

Carers are also entitled to periods of rest and recuperation. Long-term care insurance therefore continues to pay pension and unemployment insurance benefits for carers while they are ill or on vacation. This applies for up to 6 weeks per calendar year. As a result, their pension entitlement and their unemployment and accident insurance cover remain unaffected.
 
If the care recipient requires inpatient care in a hospital or inpatient rehabilitation, the contributions towards pension insurance, unemployment insurance, and accident insurance continue to be paid for the first 4 weeks. If these limits are exceeded, social security contributions for the carer will be paused.

The consumer advice center website provides information about many issues relating to social security and insurance for family/informal carers.

In-depth information about the topic of benefits and rights for carers is also provided on the website of the Federal Ministry of Health (BMG).

Information about benefits and rights for carers and the funding of voluntary activities is provided in Chapter 4 of the Ministry’s guide to long-term care (“Ratgeber zur Pflege”) (in German). 

The website of the Federal Office of Administration (Bundesverwaltungsamt) also offers information about social security for carers.