Social security net for foreigners (with PR)

[prn]

I was just wondering whether foreigners with PR who are paying into the pension/healthcare system would be able to avail themselves of any social security or welfare system should they fall ill with a chronic and debilitating illness?

My guess is foreigners don’t qualify for any kind of disability allowance, but I just wanted to check.

If indeed we don’t qualify, what would be a good private insurance option for such an eventuality?

[RetireJapan]

Hi prn

There are a couple of different things in your question. The Japanese pension includes disability insurance. Anyone paying into it would be eligible to receive it, although they may find it hard to remain in Japan if they are on a work visa. For this reason I recommend everyone try to get PR as soon as possible.

Welfare is a different matter. You may have seen the newspaper articles about the lady who was deemed ineligible last year: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2014/ ... kTVHFWWapo

The law seems to state that foreign residents are not entitled to receive welfare, but local authorities can provide it voluntarily.

I would hope anyone following RetireJapan would not need welfare in the future!

[captainspoke]

I'm a recent retiree and am now paying for 介護保険, about ¥12,500/month. Since I'm paying in, I would certainly expect to be covered if I had to be institutionalized. (Yuk, what a thought!)

This is new as a retiree, and is in addition to the other health insurance that I pay for.

I don't think it would make a difference as to cost or whether this has to be paid, but as a former uni teacher, I opted to continue with 私学共済 system for this year, supposedly better than switching immediately to the public system. I may (or not) continue this for one more year (the max allowed) since you can tick boxes to include some term life insurance for yourself and your spouse, and also buy a little extra that might cover a private room if you happen to be hospitalized. (Of course you pay extra for that.)

[captainspoke]

I was just wondering whether foreigners with PR who are paying into the pension/healthcare system would be able to avail themselves of any social security or welfare system should they fall ill with a chronic and debilitating illness?

My guess is foreigners don’t qualify for any kind of disability allowance, but I just wanted to check.

If indeed we don’t qualify, what would be a good private insurance option for such an eventuality?

Pre-retirement, if you're disabled or laid up for an extended time, I think the coverage and compensation are pretty well spelled out, you only need to chat with your personnel office about this. If you're employed and unable to work, there are certain thresholds at which your company can reduce your salary, but at those same times your coverage will then likely replace part of the salary that you've lost. ((<<spoken as someone who was a full time, regular employee, 正社員))

For example (and these numbers are not exact), if I were in hospital for over 8 weeks, my workplace would then begin by reducing my salary by half. But the 私学共済 system would take up some slack, I think paying me enough that my salary equivalent would be 75-85% of normal/original.

That's the first step, and after a more extended period (and this is where my knowledge gets cloudy and inaccurate), your company is allowed to reduce your salary even more, and the system will then pay you a little more, but in total it will be a smaller fraction of your original salary.