MARTIN MAWAYA
HARARE–Insurance and Pensions Commission (IPEC) says pension benefits owed to non-resident has surged to ZW$122 million in the first quarter, an increase of ZW$25 million compared to the fourth quarter of the corresponding year.
The total number of non-resident pensioners stands at 3 286 according to the 2023 IPEC report, the increase emanated from lack of data integrity and legacy debt issues.
Non-resident pensioners are people who have once worked in Zimbabwe and are eligible for pension payouts but no longer reside in the country.
The regulatory board added that the issue of unpaid non-resident members continues to be a challenge “due to non-payments”.
It says the Stand-Alone funds remain the highest level of benefits owed to non-resident pensioners with 65% followed by insured funds 30% whilst self administered funds accounted for 5%.
The report also revealed that the countries’ largest diversified financial service providers, Old Mutual Life Assurance Company and Mining Industry Pension Fund constitutes the highest number of non-resident pensioners with 1428 and 1034 respectively.
“Old Mutual indicated that they paid 1346 non-resident pensioners during the first quarter under review, these non-resident pensioners were paid in local currency. The issue of unpaid non-resident continues to be a challenge due to lack of data integrity and legal debt issues,” reads the IPEC report.
Meanwhile, the report further highlighted that unclaimed benefits aging for insured funds rose to 800% from ZW$417.5 million in the first quarter of 2022 to ZW$3.76 billion in 2023 of the same period.
Resultantly, the number of members with unclaimed benefits also increased to 11 692 for the period under review from 10 639 of the fourth quarter ending December 2022, says IPEC.
Adding that the unclaimed benefits constitute 25% of the total unclaimed benefits for the industry.
For the self-administered, the regulatory authority recorded unclaimed benefits amounting to ZW$3.73 billion owed to 9 252 members, whereas in 2022 ZW$588 million was reported for 11 384 members.
With Minerva Employee Benefits unclaimed benefits membership stands at 6 784, contributing about 73% of self-administered fund total membership.
In terms of the monitory value, the report says “the 0-2 year reported the bulk of unclaimed benefits amounting to ZW$2 billion with a total membership of 23 509 for the period under review”.
However, unclaimed benefits Aging for Stand-Alone funds membership in the first quarter declined from 94 223 to 85 406, translating to 10.3%.
This was as a result of reclassification of unclaimed benefits to suspended members in the Clothing Industry Pension Fund.
