Tip #8 On Japanese Social Insurance

Diferent Types of Japanese Social Insurance

Japanese National Health Insurance/Kokumin Kenko Hoken 国民健子保険

One of the things that I loved most about to coming to Japan was the health insurance. If you work for a company you have to have health insurance. There is the government scheme that is initially cheap, but then goes up in price after a year or two in which you pay one third, your company pays one third, and the government pays one third of your medical costs. However, there are also private plans that are often pushed onto their workers by their companies. At first these are more expensive because the national health insurance plan is based on the previous year’s earnings (if you are new to Japan that should be 0). But are cheaper in the long term because after working for one year and earnings become calculated in, you suddenly have to pay about 10% of your earnings into the program there after.

Japanese Pension/Kokumin Nenkin 国民年金

As I come to realize that I would be away from my home country for a longer stint than I first planned, retirement savings started to become a concern. Japanese Pension, also known as Nenkin, is the government plan and basically works like social security in America in the money payout portion. You only pay in about 5%, but when it is time to receive your retirement, well you will not be living large. There are options to increase your payments to have a bigger payout later, but don’t expect big riches in the future even then. Also, if you leave the country permanently, only a portion of your contribution will be returned to you. The rest becomes the property of the system.

Japanese Unemployment Insurance/Koyou Hoken 雇用保険

And then there is Unemployment Insurance. You are forced to pay around one thousand yen a month. If you were unfortunately laid off you cannot start receiving moneys for one month and must show that you are actively seeking work. However, if you quit your job or are between contracts then you cannot receive any moneys from this system for three months. So if you work teaching English, unless your company declares bankruptcy, you are not going to get anything from this, but you still have to pay into it.

Final Thoughts on Japanese Social Insurance

One thing about paying into Japanese Social Insurance that is quite good is that if you contribute then your are much more likely to receive the Permanent Resident Visa that allows you to work for anybody you want for a non-specified period of time; ie forever if you can manage it. I have heard of people being totally denied the Permanent Resident Visa even though they had a Japanese spouse simply because they had avoided paying into Japanese Social Insurance. Being an overall contibuter to Japanese society in easily quantifiable terms is very important to the authorities that be.

References

Japanese Social Insurance Explained in Detail by HTM

Overview of Japanese Social Insurance

Wikipedia Japanese Unemployment Insurance

Feature Image by Samuel Zeller

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