To assign a pension upon reaching a certain age or length of service, a citizen must confirm his work (insurance) record. All information about the period worked is recorded in the work book. However, in practice, there are cases when a document is lost or the entered data is incorrect. What to do in such situations and how to confirm your work (insurance) experience?
The Pension Fund suggests considering two options: if it is necessary to restore data on length of service and salary before 2002 and after 2002.
Experience and salary until 2002
You can confirm your work experience and salary before 2002 by contacting the territorial division of the Pension Fund at your place of residence and providing additional documents.
According to the Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation “On approval of the Rules for calculating and confirming insurance experience for the establishment of insurance pensions” dated October 2, 2014 No. 1015, labor (insurance) experience can be confirmed by entries made in the work book, and in case of its absence, in the following documents:
– employment contracts;
– extracts from orders;
– certificates issued by the employer;
– employee’s personal accounts and statements of wages issued;
– statements confirming the fact of payment of mandatory payments to tax authorities;
– other documents that contain information about periods of work.
These documents may be “in the hands” of the citizen himself. If they are missing, then you should contact the employer for the period that was recorded incorrectly or not recorded at all. After receiving the relevant application from the employee for the release of information, the employer is obliged to provide certified copies of the certificates within three days.
* Pension fund specialists recommend starting the search for missing documents in cases where the citizen was officially registered and received a so-called “white” salary. In the 90s, it was a very common situation in the country when an employer gave his subordinates a “gray” salary and did not pay mandatory insurance contributions to the Pension Fund. In these cases, a person loses his insurance period and receives a pension that is less than what he expected.
Ways to confirm work experience
If the length of service is not reflected in the citizen’s individual personal account with the Pension Fund, additional documents will be needed to confirm it.
The following are the main ways to confirm experience:
- Using a work book.
- Archival information.
- Witness testimony to the Pension Fund.
- Through the court.
Confirmation of work experience with a work book
The work book is considered the main document confirming the work experience, but does not guarantee 100% inclusion in it, and therefore in the insurance period, of all periods of work recorded in it.
The work book is considered the main document confirming work experience before 2002, including Soviet
If everything is fine with her, there are usually no difficulties with recognition of work experience.
Problems arise in such situations:
- The entry in the work book was entered incorrectly. For example, it is not certified by the seal and/or signature of the head of the organization or the responsible person, the date or serial number is not indicated, the basis for making the entry is not indicated (this is usually an order for hiring, dismissal, transfer to another position or to another structural unit, etc. etc. with a mention of the name of the document, its number and date of publication), etc.
- The entry contains inaccuracies. For example, they do not match the job titles in the hiring and dismissal records, or the order number differs greatly chronologically from the date of entry made on its basis.
- There are corrections in the record that were not properly filed.
- The seal is not readable.
The need for additional confirmation of work experience often arises among former members of collective farms. In this case, the entry in the collective farmer’s work book about membership in the collective farm does not automatically confirm the fact of working in it. This means that additional documentary evidence is required that the person actually worked on the collective farm during the relevant period and that his salary was paid, including in workdays.
In such cases, employees of the Pension Fund branch may require additional documents confirming the relevant period of work. For example, an archival certificate or other confirmation.
Confirmation of insurance experience with an archival certificate
An archival certificate confirming the fact that a citizen works in a particular organization is considered the second most important document confirming certain periods of work experience, after the work book.
The need for this document arises when certain periods of work are for some reason not reflected in the work book or the records about them have caused complaints from Pension Fund employees.
If the organization in which the pension applicant worked continues to exist, you must apply for an archival certificate directly there. It also happens that the organization itself is no longer there, but it has a legal successor. Information about its availability can be obtained from the tax office at the place where such an organization was located.
It is much more difficult when an organization has ceased to exist and there is no legal successor; all that remains is to go to the archives, where information about it and its former employees can be stored. It is also necessary to contact the archive in cases where the organization has a legal successor or continues to function itself, but they refuse to issue a certificate confirming labor activity to the applicant under one pretext or another.
Which archive to contact depends on the subordination of the organization of interest in the past. If it was of union or republican subordination, information about it is most likely contained in the federal archive, regional or territorial - regional, city - in the city archive, etc. However, it is enough to contact any archive at the location of the organization. If it does not contain the necessary information, its employees are obliged to forward the application themselves within seven days.
The minimum requirements for a request to the archive from a private individual require the following set of information:
- The exact name of the archive to which the applicant is applying.
- Full name of the applicant, his registration address, additional contact information: postal address, if different from registration, contact phone number, email.
- The name of the document is a statement.
- The essence of the appeal. Here it is advisable to state as accurately and completely as possible what information is needed:
- exact and full name of the employer;
- name of the structural unit;
- name of the position held;
- work period.
- The place and purpose of submitting the archival certificate is to the Pension Fund for the assignment of a pension.
- Date.
- Applicant's signature.
Sample application for issuance of an archival certificate
To the archives of the city of Novokuznetsk
from Ivanov Ivan Ivanovich,
date of birth: 01/12/1958,
residing at the address: Novosibirsk, Krasny Prospekt d..., apt..,
tel.
Statement
I ask you to issue an archival certificate confirming your work experience in the foundry shop No. 1 of the West Siberian Metallurgical Plant OJSC as a foundry worker for the years 1992–1997.
The certificate is required for submission to the Pension Fund for the assignment of an old-age insurance pension.
20.01.2018
It should be taken into account that there are two types of archival certificates:
- about work experience;
- about the salary for the period of interest.
Often the Pension Fund requires both certificates. After all, the size of the future pension depends, among other factors, on the average salary for any five years preceding 2002, and it may happen that information about it precisely for the period that needs confirmation will be the reason for its upward revision. In such a case, it makes sense to request both certificates at once - both about confirmation of experience and about salary. To do this, you can request both with one application (“I ask you to issue archival certificates confirming your work experience and salary…”) or write a separate request for each.
Certificates confirming work experience and archives are issued free of charge. After all, this service is classified as socially significant. The law allows 30 days for its preparation from the date of receipt of the request. If this time was not enough, the archive notifies the applicant about the extension of the period for consideration of his appeal, indicating the reasons and a new deadline within which he will respond.
The archival certificate must satisfy a number of mandatory requirements:
- Be issued on the letterhead of an enterprise, organization or archive.
- Contain in the text information about the subject of the request.
- Contain archival codes of documents and sheet numbers of archival files that served as sources of the information presented in it.
- Provide information only regarding the citizen referred to in the request.
- Present events in chronological order in the same order as in the sources.
- Reflect all renamings of the organization itself, structural divisions, positions, etc., mentioned in the certificate, which took place from the time of the events described until the day the document was compiled.
- All discrepancies with the information contained in the request must be accompanied by explanations, for example, that this is exactly how it is stated in the original document.
- Corrections in the text of the archived help are not allowed. If they are in the source, a corresponding note is made about this.
- Salary information is presented separately for each month of accrual; average annual and average monthly income are not calculated. No adjustments are made for inflation - all information is given in prices of the corresponding period, which can be stated in the text. If there is no information about the salary of a specific former employee, the figures are taken from the staffing table for the period of interest.
- The certificate is certified by the seal of the organization and the signature of its head or other authorized person.
In the 80s of the last century, a relative of the author of these lines, at that time a young nurse, was sent to Afghanistan. There she worked for almost two years as an operating nurse in a front-line hospital in Kabul. Then she returned home, graduated from medical school and became a cardiac surgeon. In 2014, already close to retirement age, she sought advice from her Pension Fund branch, where she was advised to take an archival certificate regarding the Afghan period of her biography. The archives of the Russian Ministry of Defense could not help her. The necessary information ended up in the archives of the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Uzbekistan. But thanks to the certificate she received from there, she not only confirmed her length of service, but also retired early with the same rights as combatants.
Photo gallery: samples of archival certificates of length of service and salary
Sample of an archival certificate of work experience, part 1
Sample of an archival certificate of work experience, part 2
Sample of an archival certificate of work experience, part 3
Sample of an archival salary certificate, part 1
Sample of an archival salary certificate, part 2
Sample of archival salary certificate, part 3
Sample of an archival salary certificate, part 4
Confirmation of work experience by testimony in the Pension Fund of Russia
In some cases, the law allows for confirmation of work experience by testimony of witnesses. But there is a mandatory condition - data for the period of interest was not preserved in the archive due to a natural disaster, military operations or other emergency events, and this fact is documented. As a rule, the confirmation is a certificate from the archive where the documents of interest were stored.
Then the future pensioner is required to find at least two witnesses with whom he worked together, and be ready to inform his Pension Fund office of their full names and addresses. In turn, each witness must have documentary evidence of the fact of working at the same enterprise during the period of interest. Another condition is that by the beginning of the period for which the length of service is being confirmed, the witnesses must have reached the age at which it is permissible to conclude an employment contract, that is, 16 years.
In some cases, you can confirm your work experience with the help of colleagues
They are afraid that they will have to drag the witnesses to their Pension Fund office, but don’t. They can give evidence at the fund’s nearest branch or provide it in writing, having previously certified it to a notary.
To attract witnesses, you need to write an application to your Pension Fund branch with a request to interview witnesses to confirm the insurance record for such and such a period and indicate their full name and address, and attach a certificate confirming the fact and reason for the loss of documents in the archive.
But there are also limitations. When confirmed by testimony, no more than half of the minimum length of service is counted for calculating the insurance pension. This experience in 2020 is nine years; accordingly, a maximum of four and a half years can be counted. By 2025, when the minimum insurance period will increase to 15 years, if there are no further changes in pension legislation, it will be possible to confirm up to seven-and-a-half years of experience using testimony.
If the testimony of witnesses regarding the length of service differs, the shortest period confirmed by them will be counted.
A case from one's life. In Soviet times, a woman was a member of a collective farm and worked on it for three years, from 1985 to 1988. However, the work book only contained a record of membership in a collective farm, which is not enough for work experience. The collective farm was transformed into an agricultural enterprise, which still exists today, but its archives for the 80s were destroyed by fire. Therefore, from there the former collective farmer was only able to obtain certificates about the new name of the agricultural enterprise and about the destruction of the archive. The witnesses who confirmed that she was a milkmaid during the period of interest were the former chairman of the collective farm and the ex-manager of the farm, who held these positions at that very time. The chairman confirmed his work on the collective farm with a work book, the entry in it did not raise any doubts in the Pension Fund of Russia, and the head of the farm - with a certificate issued to her upon dismissal. As a result, three years of collective farm experience were counted.
Confirmation of work experience in court
In a situation where it is impossible to confirm work experience either with entries in the work book or with an archival certificate and the conditions for attracting witnesses through the Pension Fund are not met, and in other difficult cases, the pension applicant can apply to the court for confirmation of work experience.
A special feature of this option is that the plaintiff has the right to present to the court any documentary evidence of his work in a given period, including those not accepted for consideration by the Pension Fund. And if he takes them into account and makes a decision to satisfy the claim, the decisive vote will be his.
The court also takes into account witness testimony, including evidence that did not satisfy the FIU in some way. And it can render a verdict in favor of the plaintiff based on the totality of the evidence presented by him.
A well-drafted statement of claim increases your chances of winning your case in court. In this document you need to set out in detail all the circumstances of the case and provide a list of documents confirming your words. Simultaneously with filing a claim, you can immediately attach to it a petition to call witnesses, which will somewhat speed up the consideration of the case.
Photo gallery: sample statement of claim to the court for confirmation of work experience
Sample statement of claim to the court for confirmation of work experience, part 1
Sample statement of claim to the court for confirmation of work experience, part 2
Sample statement of claim to the court for confirmation of work experience, part 3
Sample statement of claim to the court for confirmation of work experience, part 4
Other documents to confirm work experience
If the information from the main documents about the work experience is incomplete or requires additional confirmation, the law allows the use of any paper on the basis of which it can be concluded that the applicant for a pension during the relevant period worked or performed other activities useful to society that are to be included in the work experience.
The following may be considered in this capacity:
- Labor and civil law contracts, one copy of which always remains in the hands of the employee or performer.
- Copies of any orders related directly to the pension applicant (on hiring, dismissal, transfer to a new position or to another structural unit, awards, bonuses, penalties, etc.), and any others where he is mentioned as worker.
- Certificates 2-NDFL.
- Characteristics from places of work.
- Trade union cards.
In the absence of other evidence, it is possible to confirm work experience using a union card with marks of payment of dues at the place of work
- Certificates from trade union organizations that participated in the conclusion of employment contracts.
- Certificates from employers confirming the fact and period of work, salary, positions held, etc.
In short, any documents containing information about where, when, by whom and for how long you worked.
By law, the Pension Fund is obliged to accept them in the absence of other confirmation. But even if he rejected them, there is a chance to defend his case in court.
As for current and recent places of work, we can recommend asking them for copies of those of the listed documents that seem feasible to obtain. This right is available both to an employee who is in an employment relationship and to an individual who is a party to a civil contract.
Witness Support
Situations are also possible when the enterprise is liquidated and there are no documents in the archives. In this case, a citizen can confirm his work (insurance) experience by obtaining testimony. A citizen’s work activity can be confirmed by at least two witnesses who worked with him during a given period.
To formalize this testimony, a citizen can:
– write an application to the Pension Fund with a request to establish a period of work based on testimony;
– indicate the full name and address details of witnesses;
– attach a certificate from the archive stating that there is no documentation of the liquidated organization there.
It is worth considering this point: according to the Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation “On approval of the Rules for calculating and confirming insurance experience for establishing insurance pensions” dated October 02, 2014 No. 1015, the period of labor (insurance) experience, which is established through testimony, should not exceed half of that required for obtaining a pension length of service
However, there are exceptions. If documents were destroyed due to natural disasters, then the entire period of work without limitation is established based on witness testimony.
Go to court.
Sometimes the Pension Fund refuses to count certain periods of work into the work (insurance) length of service for a future pensioner. As a reason, the Pension Fund refers to the insufficiency of the documents and information provided, or the presence of errors in them, for example, in the name of the employer. In this case, the citizen has the right to file a claim in court against the territorial body of the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation.
The statement of claim must be accompanied by documents confirming your position. Such documents may include:
- employment contract;
– financial documents confirming payment of wages to the employee;
– local regulations of the employer, which contain information about employees:
– other documents.
Also in court, the plaintiff can refer to witness testimony.
Very often, the court takes the side of the future pensioner and overturns the decisions of the Pension Fund, after which the citizen is assigned a pension taking into account the disputed period of work.
Period after 2002
The situation in case of loss of data in the work book since 2002 has been significantly simplified. Since 2002, the employer has independently sent all data to the electronic database of the Pension Fund, where the information will be stored.
That is, all information about periods of work and the amount of insurance premiums paid for each period of work of a citizen is contained on an individual personal account. Here, more attention should be paid to regularly checking the accuracy of the information provided by the employer and, if necessary, eliminating errors and restoring gaps.
Confirmation of non-insurance periods included in the length of service
Some periods are also included in the total length of service, despite the fact that no contributions were paid during this time. These include periods:
- military service, which can also be confirmed by a record of employment or a certificate from a military unit;
- receiving unemployment benefits, which is confirmed by a corresponding certificate from the employment center;
- care for a child under 1.5 years old, which can be confirmed by the child’s birth certificate, or a certificate from work about the beginning and end of parental leave (but the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation will also need to provide information about the second parent to verify information that he was the period of child care is included in the total length of service);
- caring for an elderly person or a person with the first group of disabilities, which is confirmed by a decision of the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation and a certificate of joint residence (when the caregiver lived separately, confirmation will be required from the person being cared for or from one of his family members).
