The first Russian Pension Charter was adopted in 1827. The only national Pension Fund was founded in the same year – contributions from salaries covered some of the pensions, while the treasury bore most of the pension costs. The size of pensions depended on the category of a civil or military servant until the Revolution of 1917.
Mandatory insurance of workers was proposed in Russia in 1889. A bill on liability of owners of manufacturing enterprises for deaths and injuries of their workers was submitted to the State Council.
Private pensions were actively developing in the country at the end of the 19th century: there were mining and insurance partnerships, pension funds, and savings funds. Even peasants could earn a pension. An employer made deductions from their earnings to a savings bank, and the money was credited to their personal accounts.
The first national law, “On Compensation of Workers and Employers Injured in Factory and Mining Accidents and their Families”, was adopted on June 2, 1903. The law envisaged mandatory insurance of workers and had a number of articles important for the establishment of a state social insurance system in Russia.
WWI and the Revolution, which completely changed the domestic situation, hindered the establishment of an integral, streamlined system of pension and insurance in the country.
As the Soviet regime established itself after 1917, it took a course towards mandatory pensions for everyone. That did not happen instantly, although disability and survivor pensions were paid since the first post-Revolution years. The Resolution “On Bonuses to Pensions of Disabled Veterans” was issued on 1917, and the Resolution “On the Endorsement of Regulations for Social Security of Working People” was released in 1918. It guaranteed the payment of sickness, pregnancy and injury benefits to all temporarily disabled employees, irrespective of their field of work. Enterprises started paying benefits at the expense of insurance contributions in 1922.
State social insurance acquired a common budget in 1929, and regulations for pensions and social insurance benefits were adopted in the Soviet Union in 1930 to replace the state pension system with a social insurance pension.
Social insurance contributions started funding services of health resorts, lodges and holiday centers, as well as children’s camps in 1931. The notion of “disease prevention” appears in the vocabulary of trade union activists. The development of the Soviet “health factory” – health resorts – began. Soviet trade unions took charge of social insurance in 1933.
History of Social Insurance Fund
An off-budget social insurance fund of the Russian Federation was established on January 1, 1991, by Resolution No.600/9-3 “On Improving the Management and Procedure for Financing Expenses for Social Insurance of the Workers of the RSFSR” of the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR and the Federation of Independent Trade Unions dated December 25, 1990. The fund was transformed into a financial and credit institution under the Russian government in 1993.
The fund was a specialized entity that provided operation of the entire multi-level system of state social insurance.
The Social Insurance Fund of Russia was one of the state off-budget funds, which existed in the integral budget system of the Russian Federation. Same as other off-budget state funds, it was not part of the Russian consolidated budget but was approved by a separate federal law.
The Fund was financing expenses of mandatory social insurance on temporary disability, maternity, industrial accidents and occupational diseases, alongside state functions it was tasked with performing.
On January 1, 2005, the Fund was ordered to fulfill Federal Law No.122-FZ dated 22.08.2004 and provide beneficiaries with health resort vouchers and free travel to health resorts and back at the expense of the federal budget.
Later that year, Resolution of the Russian Government No. 771 dated 12.12.2004 tasked the Fund with providing disabled persons and certain categories of veterans with technical means of rehabilitation, prostheses (except for dental ones) and prosthetic and orthopedic products at the expense of the federal budget.
The Fund opened offices in all constituent territories of the Russian Federation.
The Fund organized the fulfillment of the state social insurance budget, annually approved by a federal law, and controlled the spending of social insurance contributions. Whenever necessary, the Fund distributed social insurance contributions between regions and industries, thus maintaining financial stability of the system. In addition, the Fund drafted and implemented state programs to improve social insurance practices and to protect health of employees.
PFR-SIF Merger
The Pension Fund and the Social Insurance Fund merged into the Pension and Social Insurance Fund of the Russian Federation on January 1, 2023. The short name is the Social Fund of Russia.
The social security and insurance system has been progressively changing and improving in Russia over the past 30 years. The Pension Fund provided numerous benefits to various categories of citizens, including pensioners, families with children, federal benefit holders and servicemen. The PFR was paying pensions, social benefits, maternity capital and children’s and other benefits. In turn, the Social Insurance Fund was providing citizens with sick leaves and benefits, childbirth certificates, means of rehabilitation and health resort vouchers. Both funds interacted with the same persons, and asked one another for information via the interagency interaction system.
The merger into the Social Fund of Russia made the information exchange unnecessary. The joint database contains more information about citizens, which is necessary for the assignment of support, which facilitates access to payments and cuts the waiting time. Pensions, federal benefits, maternity capital, sick leaves, and other payments assigned by two different funds became available in a one-stop format on January 1, 2023.
The merger of the funds will simplify access to social support. All pensions and benefits assigned earlier will continue to be paid on the same dates. The assignment of federal benefits will be expedited as interagency requests become unnecessary.
A single tariff for mandatory pension, social and health insurance contributions is yet another innovation. The single tariff will facilitate the payment of insurance contributions and the submission of respective reports by employers, will increase the maximum amount of sick leave and maternity benefits 1.5 times by 2025, and will provide equal access to social insurance for citizens working on labor and civil law contracts.
The merged fund will be providing the same services. It will be possible to apply for social support at joint client offices of the Social Fund of Russia and multifunctional centers, or file applications online on the gosuslugi.ru portal.