Franziska Hauser, who works as a writer and photographer, is like so many freelance artists and creatives at the moment: The order situation has thinned out due to the pandemic and can barely cover a living. When all readings on her new novel were canceled or postponed in spring 2020, Hauser was still able to get by with the help of the Berlin emergency aid. In the fall, the catch-up appointments couldn’t take place either, money was running out, and Hauser then intensified her part-time job. The writer gives freelance lessons as a teacher for German as a foreign language (DaF) for a language school.
When she asked the artists’ social insurance fund (KSK), with which she is insured, to adjust her contribution amount, she admitted – “stupidly,” as she says – that in addition to the monthly 1000 euros from artistic work, 600 euros as a DaF teacher to earn. The problem: The KSK allows income from non-artistic independent work only up to the so-called marginal earnings limit, i.e. up to 450 euros per month.
At that time, she was not aware of violating the guidelines of the artists’ social insurance, says Hauser in an interview via Zoom. Sure, who reads the fine print? A short time later, in any case, a few days before the holidays, she received a letter from the KSK in response, in which the KSK announced that it would cancel her insurance. At the beginning of January the termination followed retrospectively to January 1st.
Hauser doesn’t think it’s an isolated incident. The regulations of the KSK aimed at the situation of the artists, she thinks: “Actually, I have to bend reality so that it fits into the forms and tables.” And actually she was even proud not to have to apply for unemployment benefit II – which the KSK actually suggested to her over the phone.
Goodwill in the crisis?
On paper, the KSK is right. You can read the requirements for non-artistic, independent sideline activities on their website, but: If it weren’t for the time now via the KSK, artists who find themselves in an emergency due to the restrictions in the pandemic, to support artists who are in an emergency due to the restrictions in the pandemic as unbureaucratically as possible, to interpret rules more generously or even better to adapt to reality? Or at least to issue a warning before a notice of termination is given?
When asked whether it might not be possible to respond more accommodatingly in such cases in the current crisis situation, the KSK refers to the Artists’ Social Insurance Act (KSVG). The artists’ social insurance fund is obliged to “implement this in its statutory provisions in accordance with the law even during the corona pandemic.” Which also means, in the case of a non-artistic, free sideline activity that regularly exceeds the additional earnings limit, to determine the freedom from insurance in health and long-term care insurance.
However, the KSK does not want to leave its policyholders out in the rain during the corona crisis and has on your website a couple of measures listed. Contributions can apply for hourly contributions or to pay contributions in installments – which ultimately only postpones the problem – and, just like at other times, the option to reduce or increase the expected annual income at any time in order to adapt the contribution amount to your current financial situation. The KSK wrote in its email that this option has been used more than 65,000 times since March 12, 2020. Of course, it doesn’t say what those who did that lived on.
Franziska Hauser has to do the math again. Either way. In the meantime, with the support of a consultant, she is trying to be re-accepted into the KSK – and with the promise of not earning more than 450 euros per month in future.
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