Financial aid: the 6 rights most forgotten by retirees

As of December 31, 2021, there were 14.8 million retirees in France, according to the National Old Age Insurance Fund (CNAV). After a life of work, these seniors received in 2019, on average, a pension of 1,444 euros gross, or approximately 1,341 euros net (data from the Department of Research, Studies, Evaluation and Statistics. C is well below the average salary in France, which in 2022 amounted to 2,340 euros net per month.

And while some retirees can count on their assets or their savings to boost their income, others struggle to live with their meager pension. This is the case of Bernadette, or Bahia, whom Planet met.

Another problem: many retirees do not claim the benefits to which they are nevertheless entitled.

This is called “non-recourse”. But why do we refuse aid? Often, it is simply because you do not know them, or because the complexity of the procedures is discouraging. Others struggle to use the digital tools, often necessary to make the request. Finally, some French people fear being “stigmatized” by accepting this aid.

“The complexity of the offer and the various obstacles (theoretical or methodological) are all elements that contribute to a lesser clarity of the services offered to the elderly”, specifies a report from the CNAV.

However, asserting your rights can make life a little easier, and can reduce inequalities on a larger scale.

For Capital magazine, the director of the national old-age insurance fund, Renaud Villard, detailed the benefits that are very often forgotten by retirees. Check out the list in our slideshow of those helpers you should ask for now.

To facilitate access to retirement procedures and the resulting financial assistance, services will be created from 2022 to enable retirees to benefit from them. In particular, retirees will be offered the possibility of finding all supplementary pension insurance contracts directly online. Parliament has indeed passed a bill which increases the information intended for policyholders and reduces the number of unclaimed pension contracts. From July 2022, all policyholders will have access to the Info-retraite.fr portal, which brings together all the products taken out during their career.

Still obscure for some retirees, the application procedures will be considerably improved to guarantee better accessibility. It will now be possible to scan the supporting documents necessary to obtain a pension via the mobile application, My retirement account. Just before the start of the school year in September, the children can also be declared on each retirement account in order to simulate their retirement age or the full amount of their pension.