According to Cristel van de Ven, chairman of the Netherlands Self-Employed Association (VZN), many misconceptions have arisen about the compulsory state pension. “That is because what is now available is only a proposal from Minister Karien van Gennip (Social Affairs and Employment, ed.). Many people already think that this is it. That is not yet the case. A lot can still be changed.”
In addition, there are self-employed people who are afraid that the compulsory state pension will cost a lot of money, says Van de Ven. “The chronically ill and the elderly are now paying blue if they want to take out insurance. They are concerned that compulsory disability insurance will also become unaffordable for them.”
But according to Van de Ven, they don’t have to worry about that. The idea behind the mandatory Aov is that all self-employed persons are accepted. For the chronically ill and the elderly, a compulsory state pension is therefore an improvement of the current situation, she says.
Few self-employed persons are now insured
“It will be just like health insurance,” says Paul Koopman, spokesperson for the Dutch Association of Insurers. Everyone gets an equal premium. In that respect, the minister’s plans are a solution to a social problem. “In practice, we see that many self-employed people are able to take out insurance, but they don’t.”
Only 20 percent of all self-employed persons now have insurance in case they become incapacitated for work. “That’s not much,” says Koopman. “If they do become incapacitated for work, they will receive assistance.”
According to him, this is because self-employed people now have to choose for themselves to be insured. That costs money, but also a lot of time to find out what’s going on. “If you are just starting a company, you are not concerned with the possibility that you will be out for a long time. Then you will not spend time and money on that.”
The minister’s plan is not (yet) perfect
Nevertheless, according to Van de Ven, there are still many snags to the minister’s plan. The insurance offers a payment of a maximum of the minimum wage. This means that you will receive a minimum wage every month if you are declared fully incapacitated for work.
That is a lot for one self-employed person, but little for others. “If you fall into the latter group, it doesn’t work if you have to support yourself or your family with that money,” says the VZN chairman.
Furthermore, it is difficult to introduce such a rule for all self-employed people, because there are so many different self-employed persons. “Accessibility to insurance for the chronically ill, for example, has been solved with a mandatory aov,” says Koopman. “But the obligation also applies to people who do not want it.” If you only work on a self-employed basis for a few hours a month, you will soon be left with expensive insurance that you may not need.
The law that regulates the mandatory state pension for the self-employed must come into effect in 2025. But it will probably not be available to all freelancers until 2027.
