Although the law requires employees to be registered for social security in all workplaces, some workers are employed without insurance, which affects their retirement periods. Days worked without insurance and days for which contributions were reported at reduced earnings can cause both short-term and long-term problems. However, it is possible to include uninsured working days in the insurance record by filing a service determination lawsuit.
Including Work Periods in Insurance with a Service Determination Lawsuit
Those who worked uninsured or whose contributions were paid to the Social Security Institution (SGK) based on under-reported earnings can file a service determination lawsuit to have those uninsured days recognized and added to their insurance record. The key requirement for filing such lawsuits is the five-year statute of limitation: the claim must be filed within five years. If a person does not file a lawsuit within five years for the period they worked uninsured, they lose that right. It is not necessary to still be employed at the workplace during this period; for example, someone who worked uninsured at a workplace for six months and later left can still sue the employer within five years.
For employees who were later registered for insurance by the employer, the five-year limitation period is calculated from the date they left the job. If male employees left their job to serve in the military without receiving their severance pay, it is still possible to file a service determination lawsuit for the period they continued working at the same workplace.
Ensuring registration of work periods for insurance is an important matter, especially when uninsured employment lasts for many years. Every insured day counts toward retirement, so extended periods of uninsured work can result in significant losses in pension contributions and age eligibility requirements.
File a Lawsuit for Periods Less Than Five Years
When preparing to file a lawsuit for insurance registration—whether the employee recently left the workplace or is still working—the first step is generally to send a notarized warning (notary notice). Having an attorney prepare the notice helps make the claim clearer and stronger from a legal perspective. The notice should specify that all uninsured days be calculated and that the employer be asked to make retroactive payments to SGK. If the employee left the job within the five-year limit, sending the notice and filing a lawsuit is possible. For example, if someone worked uninsured between 2015 and 2020, they can request insurance coverage for all those days from the employer, provided the five-year period has not yet expired. If more than five years have passed, the right to file is lost.
More precisely, when an uninsured worker is later registered, the way those prior days are treated within the five-year registration period depends on uninterrupted employment. Once an employee leaves a workplace, the limitation period begins. If the worker returns to the same workplace later, the five-year limitation does not stop; it continues to run from the date of departure. Therefore, the date the employee left the job must be taken into account when determining eligibility.
There are a few exceptions that may allow filing a lawsuit for periods older than five years. If the employer submitted certain documents to SGK—such as an employment entry notification or social security calculation slips—these records can affect whether the five-year limitation applies. For the exception to be available, there must be no SGK entry that establishes the employment in the official system. In any lawsuit, the claimant must be able to prove they worked uninsured or that their wages were underreported on payroll records. Witness testimony from colleagues who worked at the same time is often very important in these cases.