What periods are counted in the insurance period: the legal meaning of the period of service, what is not included in it

Material payments provided to an employee by his employer are directly dependent on the duration of work.
Also, this indicator affects the amount of the expected pension benefit in the future.

In the latest amendments regarding pensioner benefits, which were adopted by the federal authorities, old-age benefits were divided into two parts.

From that moment on, the size of the pension payment directly depends on their size.

What is insurance experience

The insurance period represents the total time during which the employee paid insurance contributions to extra-budgetary funds. Using this indicator, the expected pension is assigned.

Transfers to funds, including the Pension Fund of Russia, are made by the company where the employee works. The return of funds is made by the state when people reach a certain age.

The legal meaning of this concept is immediately enshrined in several legislative acts, including Federal Law No. 165, Federal Law No. 400, Federal Law No. 167. According to the documents, the insurance period is the total period during which insurance payments were made. It is necessary to determine the amount of pension provision, which is proportional to the given time. In addition, it is established that people can pay contributions independently, regardless of their work activity.

You can learn about the difference between insurance and work experience here.

The legislative framework

The fundamental regulatory and legal documents that help determine the procedure for calculating the insurance pension and accounting for length of service are the following federal documents:

Federal Law of 1996 “On individual registration in the state pension insurance system”;
Federal Law of 1999 “On Compulsory Social Insurance”;
Federal Law of 2001 “On Compulsory Pension Insurance in Russia”;
Federal Law of 2001 “On Labor Pensions”;
Federal Law of 2013 “On Insurance Pensions”.

The above also includes a list of federal laws that were adopted in two thousand and sixteen.

According to state legal documents, the insurance period is calculated for the following citizens:

Pension benefit for the loss of a breadwinner - accruals are made to family members with lost legal capacity who were supported by the insured citizen;
For civilians insured under the compulsory pension insurance system;
For people with foreign citizenship who do not have Russian citizenship, but reside permanently in Russia . The only condition is compliance with the terms of the legislative documents on old-age insurance benefits.

Who is entitled to an insurance pension?

Until recently, citizens of our country – men and women who had reached the age of 60 and 55, respectively – could receive monthly compensation from the state.

IMPORTANT! In 2021, changes were made that increased this age. Every year this indicator increases until the level of 65 years for men and 60 years for representatives of the fairer sex is reached.

In this case, a person must have at least 15 years of working life and accumulate at least 30 pension points.

However, there are a number of exceptions that allow you to retire earlier. This opportunity can be used by those engaged in activities included in the insurance period at enterprises with difficult working conditions, working in difficult climatic areas, representatives of small nationalities supporting traditional crafts, health workers and teachers.

Also, the following rights are vested in:

women who have given birth to more than 2 children;
disabled people and people suffering from certain diseases.

Article on the topic: The concept of special insurance experience
To exercise this right, the following conditions must be met:

When performing hazardous work, it is necessary to have worked for more than 20 years and 15 years for representatives of the stronger and weaker sex. In this case, half of the term should be spent on hazardous production. In this case, you can reduce your working time by 10 years.
For persons working in difficult conditions, a total length of service of at least 25 and 20 years (men and women) is established, of which more than 12.5 and 10 years must be in heavy work. The benefit is also 10 years.
People who worked in the north can retire 5 years earlier. You must work in the far north for at least 15 years or more than 20 years in areas equivalent to the northern ones.
When children are born, the benefit depends on their number. If you have three children, you can go on vacation 3 years earlier, if you have 4 – by 4 years, if you have 5 – by 5 years. There is a condition that children must be raised by their mother until at least 8 years of age.
Representatives of small nationalities can rest from the age of 55 and 50 for the stronger and weaker sex, respectively.
Teachers must have more than 25 years of experience. Health workers with this length of service can only apply for benefits in rural areas. When working in the city, this figure should be more than 30.

Example of calculation when accruing sick leave

For example, a person got a job at a company on September 10, 2002. And the first time I went on sick leave was on February 15, 2021. How to calculate the insurance period for sick leave in this case? Let's give a clear example:

First you need to calculate the exact number of days: 20 days in September and 15 days in February. 20+15=35 days (1 month and 5 days).
Next you need to calculate the number of months. The person worked 3 full months in 2002 and 1 full month in 2021. Total: 4 months.
Now it's time to count the full years. 2015-2003=12 years.
It turns out that a person’s insurance period for sick leave is 12 years, 5 months and 5 days.
Read also: Inseparable improvements and property tax from 2021

This means that payment for a temporary disability certificate will be made taking into account 100% of the citizen’s average salary, since the total length of service at the enterprise is more than the established 8 years.

What types of insurance experience exist?

There are different types of the concept under consideration:

General. Experience includes the total time of work for which there are supporting documents or there is a mark in the work book;
Special. It involves operating in conditions other than standard (harmful to health, in regions with a difficult climate).
Continuous. Duration of work in one or different places without interruption.
Insurance. Only those periods when transfers to government funds were made are counted.

Is it possible to apply for a pension without a work book?

There are situations when a person worked without obtaining a work book. If there is evidence that there was work activity, you can count on receiving a pension without this document. The main evidence will be contributions to the pension fund. This could be done by the applicant himself or the employer.

Documents confirming insurance experience:

certified certificates from places of work;
archival references;
originals of employment contracts.

If a citizen can collect evidence, the pension will be issued without a work book.

What periods are counted in the insurance period?

The indicator under consideration includes specific periods of work with the fulfillment of mandatory conditions:

the person was carrying out work or other activities at that time;
this happened on the territory of the Russian Federation;
the person is registered in the Pension Fund system;
deductions were being made at this time.

IMPORTANT! All activities carried out under employment, contract or service contracts are taken into account.

However, there are exceptions here too, namely periods that are counted towards the insurance period, even despite the fact that during this time there were no contributions to the funds. They are called “non-insurance periods” and the following counts towards them:

time of military duty or equivalent activity;
terms of illness confirmed by sick leave;
time for a father or mother to care for their child up to 1.5 years (no more than 6 years in total);
deadlines for receiving unemployment benefits;
time spent caring for an elderly person (over 80 years old), a disabled person of the first group or a disabled child;
in case of wrongful arrest and detention of innocent persons;
duration of foreign stay of diplomatic spouses;
the time spent by military spouses in conditions where they did not have employment opportunities;
period counted on the basis of Federal Law No. 144-FZ.

Related article: Confirmation and calculation of the insurance period
All these periods also imply the accrual of pension points assigned annually.

Calculation for pension

Recently, the Government of the Russian Federation has made some changes to the current legislation. According to the new requirements, the minimum period for calculating the insurance period will gradually increase. Let's take a closer look at this point.

So, how to calculate the insurance period for a pension after making changes?

Since 2015, in order to receive the insurance part of a pension, a citizen of the Russian Federation must work for at least 6 years (the periods are cumulative). Gradually this period will increase. And by 2024, the minimum insurance period for calculating pension payments will be 15 years.

It is also noted that the amount of insurance payments will directly depend on the length of service. Accordingly, the more a citizen works, the higher his pension will be in the future. But this only applies to the insurance part.

Types of activities and periods not included in the insurance period

In 2021, there were some changes that affected the periods included in the insurance period for assigning a pension. Thus, the insurance period now does not include studying at a university, since at this time contributions to the Pension Fund are not made.

IMPORTANT! All non-insurance periods under Art. 12 Federal Law No. 400 now relate to length of service only if before or after them there are deadlines for carrying out activities with making contributions to funds.

Such periods include all cases listed in the first five points of the list above.

Period of absence from work

The time that a person did not work can also be counted as work experience. But provided that the citizen was registered with the employment service and received unemployment compensation. You can confirm this period using a certificate from the Employment Center. But you are not required to provide this document yourself. Employees of the Pension Fund can request it.

Being in custody

The following may be counted as work experience:

being in custody;
period of imprisonment due to a wrongful conviction.

A document confirming the length of service is provided by the organization that carried out the punishment.

Caring for the disabled or elderly

Time spent caring for the following categories of citizens can be counted as work experience:

minors with disabilities;
a person over eighty years of age;
a person with disabilities who has a disability of the first group.

To confirm this period, contact the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation with a written request. If you did not live in the same area as the person you were caring for, you will need supporting documentation. In most cases, confirmation from the disabled person or pensioner himself is sufficient. If he has already passed away, his close relative can write a confirmation.

If you lived in the same living space as the person you were caring for, they will not require written confirmation. But it is necessary to prove the fact of cohabitation. This can be done by presenting a passport with a registration stamp. A certificate of family composition will also serve as proof. The document can be obtained from the MFC, the Federal Migration Service, the passport office, or on the State Services website.

If you were caring for a disabled person, you will need a document confirming the existence of a disability. This may be an extract from the act of social and medical examination.

If you were caring for an elderly person or a disabled minor, you must confirm his age using a passport

A period of care for a frail person can be confirmed under the following conditions:

at the time of leaving, you yourself were not listed as a pensioner;
you were not registered with the employment service and did not receive unemployment benefits;
you were not employed.

Military wives

This item applies to military wives who lived with their husbands in places where it is impossible to find work. The supporting document is issued either by the military commissariat or a military unit.

Spouses of persons sent to work abroad

The length of service includes the period when the spouse lived with her husband abroad. In this case, the husband had to be sent to work by a government agency. The confirmation is issued by the institution that sent the life partner of the future pensioner to another state.

Collective farm work in childhood

Many current pensioners worked on collective farms when they were children. Periods of such work are also counted as length of service. Confirmation can be taken:

on the collective farm itself, if it is still functioning;
in the district archival office if the collective farm is closed.

How is the insurance period calculated?

The insurance period is calculated by adding up all periods when contributions were made to the Pension Fund. However, for these actions to be performed correctly, the following conditions must be met:

All calculations are made based on the calendar order, taking into account that there are 12 months in a year and 30 days in a month.
When several periods are layered at once (working or other periods included in the length of service), only one of them is taken into account for calculation. The choice is made by the person to whom this indicator is calculated.
For work during navigation on the water or in a seasonal business, this time will be recorded as a full year.
The time of receiving compensation for temporary disability is fully included in the length of service, regardless of payment of payments.

How to recover data if you lose your work book

The basis of any calculation is the insurance period according to the work book, but if the document is lost or destroyed, you can restore the data by following these steps:

Contact your place of work and request extracts from orders, calculated salary statements, and employment contracts.
If the organization in which the work was carried out is liquidated, you can contact the archive, which contains all the information on no longer existing enterprises. Employees of the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation can also make a request to the archive.

If the work record book was destroyed through no fault of the applicant, the data can be restored by turning to the help of witnesses who will confirm his work activity. As a last resort, in order to prove the insurance period, you can go to court.

The application will be considered in court if:

there is no way to restore documents confirming work activity;
former labor organizations refused to provide supporting documents for the employee.

After filing the application, the court will begin a hearing of the case, during which witnesses may be called to confirm the plaintiff’s work activity. If the court verdict does not satisfy the applicant, you can appeal the decision within 10 days.

What is needed to confirm insurance experience

The main evidence of having a certain work experience is an extract from an individual account with the Pension Fund of Russia. However, mandatory registration in the system began only after 1997, and periods of activity preceding this date must be proven. In addition, such evidence will be required if there are any errors. This can be done on the basis of documents prepared by employers or government agencies.

Article on the topic: Studying at a university or vocational school - is it included in the insurance period?

The main document in this process is the citizen’s work book. However, all entries made in it must be properly completed. The following requirements apply to them:

they must not have corrections;
they can only be compiled in chronological order;
upon dismissal, a stamp must be affixed where basic information can be read;
the name of the company on the seal must exactly match the entry in the book when hiring for the position.

If any errors were made, such entry will not be taken into account in the calculation of indicators.

In addition, you must have a correctly formatted title page or document insert. Personal data must be entered correctly. When they are changed, there must be a certifying seal. Otherwise, government agencies may refuse to consider this document as the main evidence of the implementation of activities.

If it is impossible to correct the error, you will have to go to court and demand proof of the fact of ownership of the document.

If the book has been lost or it contains incorrect information or information that cannot be deciphered, contracts with companies, certificates from the place of work or from government agencies, extracts from orders, and papers confirming the payment of wages can be presented as evidence.

Most often, you can obtain the appropriate certificate by contacting the organization where the work took place, or the archive. Such documents will not be accepted by the Pension Fund if the following errors are made:

the date of issue will not be indicated;
presence of errors in personal information;
the dates of hiring and dismissal orders will not be indicated.

When proving the presence of other periods attributable to the insurance period, you can present papers including:

military ID, documents from the commissariat, archive, military units;
documents issued by the Social Insurance Fund regarding the payment of compensation for disability;
a child’s birth certificate or a document confirming parental leave at work;
extracts from the employment service;
papers proving care for the elderly and disabled.

Thus, knowing which periods are counted in the insurance period, you can guess what kind of pension you can count on in the future or check the correctness of calculation of this indicator by government agencies.

How to calculate

It is not difficult to calculate the length of service if you have the necessary package of documents confirming your work activity or proving the impossibility of such work. The first step is to add up all the periods, subtracting those periods of time during which no payments were made to the Russian Pension Fund. For example, Alexandra Ivanova officially worked for 28 years, during this period of time she took out maternity leave 2 times and spent 6 years on maternity leave. However, when calculating the length of service, only 1.5 years of parental leave are taken into account, so the length of service includes only 3 years out of 6. Thus, the length of service will be calculated using the formula: 28-3 = 25 years of insurance experience.

Notes on work activities during life are recorded in the work book and therefore this is one of the main documents when calculating the insurance period.

Online calculator for calculating your insurance period

The insurance experience calculator will allow a person to make the calculation independently. How to calculate this online using a program? For a person who knows at least a little how to use a computer, it will not be difficult to calculate this in a program.

The calculation on the online calculator is carried out as follows:

Filling out the first field is optional, but entering data about days and months will make the calculation easier overall.
To fill out the next field, you need to enter the dates of employment and the dates of dismissal.
The next field is “additional periods” which must be filled out online if available.
Please note if there was military service or time spent on maternity leave.
Finish the job by clicking on the calculate button.

When filling out the calculation calculator table, you can indicate your full name, this will help avoid confusion if the experience of several people is being calculated.

Related article: Insurance length and how it is calculated for sick leave in 2021

If, when filling out the fields for your place of work, the four lines provided were not enough, you can always add lines by clicking the “Add” button. If an error was made when filling out the table, you can correct it by deleting the incorrect data. To do this, there is a cross next to each field to fill out. If the entered data differs from the actual information, the calculation result will be incorrect. You can calculate your length of service on the website of the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation, as well as the Ministry of Labor of the Russian Federation.

Why is experience calculated?

Many people believe that the insurance period is equal to the period of employment, but when calculating a pension or sick leave payment, it turns out differently. This is due to the fact that during some periods of work a citizen may not have an employer, as well as to the peculiarities of recording length of service.

It is difficult to independently calculate the insurance period, since it is necessary to familiarize yourself with a number of nuances, such as special accounting and periods included in the insurance accrual program. For example, if you take a long unpaid leave for family reasons, then the period of employment is not interrupted, and the days of your rest are deducted from the insurance period. There are other similar examples, we will look at them below.