The average time to approve old age pensions has fallen to 23 days this year, an improvement of 31 days compared to 2022, when Social Security took 54 days to allocate the new benefits, according to updated data provided by the Instituto to Dinheiro Vivo have been sent da Segurança Social (ISS).
Based on last year’s activity report, the ISS also indicates that average decision times have decreased since 2020: “In 2022, the average approval time was reduced to 54 days, which represents a decrease of 40 days compared to 2021 (-43 days) . %) and 56 days compared to 2020 (-51%)”.
For example, in 2021 Social Security took an average of 94 days, i.e. more than three months, to approve reforms, a period that was 110 days in 2020, according to data from the report now updated and available on the ISS -website.
The clarification comes after Jornal de Negócios reported, citing the same report, that last year the average decision time for retirement pensions increased by 31 days earlier to 151 compared to 2021.
However, the information in that document was incorrect. ISS admitted the error to Dinheiro Vivo, revealing that “it has updated its activity report for 2022 as its preliminary version contained inaccuracies in the data related to the average time for pensions to be awarded”. “This preliminary version did not take into account data from automatic suspensions from Pensão na Hora, which represented 51% of suspensions in 2022,” he added.
In 2022, 37,788 pensions were awarded locally, which is 51% of the old-age pensions granted.
ISSA explains that this automatic system of Pensão na Hora allows the citizen to “visualize the value of the old age pension with the details of the paid career” when applying for a pension in direct social security. “After completing the application, it is automatically approved and the pension is granted within a maximum of 24 hours,” the ISS also indicates.
As of 2021, 75,000 pensions have been awarded through the Pensão na Hora mechanism, which is available to all beneficiaries of the Portuguese social security system.
Last year, the ISS reformed that “a significant effort has been made to expand this mechanism, which covers more and more types of pension claims”. This is because it is still not possible to automatically grant pensions to citizens whose careers include periods and reductions abroad, in the public regime and in special regimes.
Similarly, early retirement pensioners are excluded from this system as they lack the exchange of information with third parties, review of documentation and contributing careers.
Salomé Pinto is a journalist for Dinheiro Vivo
Source: DN
