Retirees and pensioners of the National Institute of Social Security (INSS) have gained an opportunity to review the value of the benefit. On the last day of the 1st, the Federal Supreme Court (STF) acknowledged the review of a lifetime?? By 6 votes to 5, policyholders won the right to recalculate benefits based on lifetime contributions. The decision, however, is not worth it for everyone and requires care.
In theory, the review can be requested by retirees and pensioners who started contributing to the INSS before July 1994, the month in which the Real Plan was created, and who retired between 1999, when the government changed the rules for calculating benefits after carry out a pension reform the previous year, and the 2019 pension reform.
The story that resulted in the judgment in the STF comes from an imbroglio related to the transition rule introduced by the Law 9.876/1999?? The legislation modified the benefit calculation rule and introduced the social security factor.
Prior to the law, all INSS benefits were calculated based on the last 36 contributions in the 48 months prior to filing for retirement. The rule was criticized because it allowed workers who had contributed almost nothing to Social Security throughout their working lives to boost their contributions four years before retiring and receive benefits equal to those who contributed their whole lives.
The law established that 80% of larger lifetime contributions would be used to calculate benefits, multiplied by the pension factor. However, this rule would only apply to those who started working with a formal contract and contributing to Social Security after the publication of the law.
Those who contributed to the INSS before the publication of the law entered into a transition rule, which calculated the benefit based on 80% of the largest contributions without multiplying by the social security factor. However, contributions were not made over the entire professional life and were only counted from July 1994 onwards, when the Plano Real was instituted.
imbroglio
Over decades, the law created a legal liability. Policyholders who received high wages before the Real Plan and would receive retirement, pensions or greater aid under the definitive rule, even with the incidence of the social security factor, began to sue the courts to be removed from the transitional rule.
Two rules were then created, the definitive and the transitional rule. In the transition rule, used to calculate all the benefits of those who were already contributing to the INSS before the new rule, only contribution salaries from July 1994 should be considered.
In December 2019, the Superior Court of Justice (STJ) granted a favorable decision to these policyholders and decided that the definitive rule could be applied in these situations. The case went to the STF, which began judging the action in February this year in the virtual plenary. At the time, the court had formed a majority of 6 to 5, but a prominent request from Minister Nunes Marques suspended the virtual trial and sent the process to the physical plenary.
Requirements
To apply for a lifetime review, the retiree or pensioner must meet the following requirements:
• Having contributed to the INSS before July 1994;
• Have retired between 11/29/1999 and 11/12/2019, so that the transition rule was applied, which considered 80% of the highest salaries since the Real Plan;
• Having received the first INSS payment in the last ten years, as long as it was before the Social Security reform enacted in November 2019.
In cases where the insured has requested a review in the last ten years, the period is interrupted and is only counted again after the response from the INSS. If the body has not provided responses, the protocol can be used as proof of interruption of the deadline.
Benefits that can be reviewed
• Retirement by age;
• Retirement by time of contribution;
• Special retirement;
• Retirement due to disability;
• By disability retirement;
• Pension for death.
Cases where it’s worth
The insured person needs to be attentive and make a thorough calculation, with the conversion of contributions prior to the creation of the currency into real, to verify whether he will have a high retirement or pension.
Even after converting the old contributions to the real, it is necessary to verify that the old low wages cannot result in smaller benefits. The calculation must also take into account the social security factor – which considered life expectancy, age and contribution time – to check whether it would receive more under the definitive rule in 1999. The social security factor was abolished with the 2019 Social Security reform.
How to ask for revision
At the moment, it is only possible to request a review in court. The INSS reported that, only after the STF publishes the ruling on the sentence, will it define administrative procedures so that the insured person can file an administrative proceeding with Social Security.
Anyone going to court needs to consider the value of the cause. Processes of up to 60 minimum wages can be dealt with in the Federal Special Court, which judges faster. Cases above this value are only judged by the Federal Court.
Those who are suing in court can ask the judge to anticipate the decision, but the ideal is to wait for the publication of the judgment by the STF, which confirms that the lifetime review must be followed by all instances.
Necessary documents
• RG and CPF;
• Proof of residence updated and in the name of the insured person;
• National Register of Social Information (CNIS), obtained from the meu.inss.gov.br portal;
• Retirement granting letter, or granting administrative process;
• For contributions up to 1981, not listed on the CNIS, it is necessary to ask the INSS to microfilm the old extracts.
blows
Last Thursday (8), the INSS warned of the risk of lifetime review scams?? Fraudsters would be pretending to be representatives of the agency to contact policyholders with promises to recalculate benefit values.
The body clarified that it does not contact its policyholders, by telephone, email, social networks or other channels, to offer services or benefits or to review values. The INSS made the following recommendations:
• Do not pass on personal data, such as CPF, telephone, address or benefit number;
• Do not send photos of documents or personal photos;
• Never share the Gov.br Portal access password;
• Not making deposits, payments or transfers. The services provided by the INSS are all free of charge;
• If you suspect a scam, block contact and file a police report.
