Digitalisation has long since transformed all aspects of our everyday lives and it plays a central role at the German Pension Insurance. The Digital Services launched by the German Pension Insurance in summer 2023 – the Customer Portal and the Digital Pension Overview – underwent evaluation after just over a year with a positive outcome.
Pension access with just a few clicks
Over 2.7 million people have visited the Digital Pension Overview portal since it was launched in 2023. Some 205,000 registered users are already benefiting from the advantages of the Digital Pension Overview, which provides German citizens with an overview of their personal pension entitlements under statutory, occupational and private pension schemes. At the same time, the number of pension funds affiliated with the portal continues to rise. At the end of 2024, 652 institutions were sharing data with the Digital Pension Overview’s central office.
The Digital Pension Overview is regularly evaluated and optimised. Results obtained in a scientific evaluation show that the level of public trust in the online portal is high. It has also significantly improved the users’ knowledge of their pension entitlements. Portal users also feel that the information provided on their individual pension entitlements is easy to understand. The portal is continuously adapted to user needs on the basis of their feedback and accessibility barriers are being systematically eliminated.
Online services at a glance
The German Pension Insurance’s online Customer Portal is also enjoying high demand. It bundles the German Pension Insurance’s most important digital services. Insured persons, pensioners and Riester pension savers can submit their applications digitally, view their data and receive correspondence electronically (Riester is a form of private pension that is subsidised by state allowances and tax benefits). Around 360,000 people have registered to use the portal since it was launched in 2023. Almost one-third of these users make full use of the electronic mailbox for communications. A total of around 850,000 documents have been downloaded from the customer portal. The use of the electronic mailbox offers customers flexible access to their documents and enables to make an active contribution to resource conservation by saving paper. Customer service and work processes are improved, while online services in particular help to avoid redundant work.
DigitalCheck – reviewing legislative proposals
In order to accelerate digital transformation, the German Pension Insurance is continuously optimising its digitalisation strategy. DigitalCheck, a tool that analyses pension policy legislation, is a core element of this process. The objective of the tool is the early identification of digitalisation-related obstacles and opportunities. Since its launch, DigitalCheck has made an important contribution to the more effective assessment of proposed legislation. It helped to show that the cost-efficient digital implementation of the draft bill for the Long-term Care Support and Relief Act is not possible. It also identified opportunities associated with the draft Private Pension Reform Bill. The concept for the reform is based on existing IT structures, IT systems and reporting procedures and thus builds on the high level of automation at the Central Allowance Office for Retirement Assets. For those reasons, the project was given a positive assessment by DigitalCheck. DigitalCheck is integrated into the overall process of drafting position papers on legislative proposals at the German Pension Insurance.
“We will be using DigitalCheck to provide prompt feedback to legislators on the digital implementation of pension- and rehabilitation-related legislative proposals.”
Director of Deutsche Rentenversicherung Bund
Let’s get cloud
The German Pension Insurance is taking another major step towards cloud transformation in public sector administration together with the Federal Employment Agency and the German Social Accident Insurance. At the event “Let’s get cloud: All together now” on 5 December 2024 in Berlin, the three social insurance institutions announced the award of the contract for their joint Multi-Cloud Tender. Now the three largest German social insurance institutions have flexible access to a high-performance cloud infrastructure.
