Problems of Financing Farmers’ Pensions Insurance in Poland

Abstract

Pensions insurance is one of the main instruments of the state’s social policy vis-a-vis the farming population. The currently functioning system of such insurance is based on premiums contributed in identical amounts by all farmers and it offers them a wide range of benefits. However, old age and disability pensions available to farmers owing to this system are far lower than those offered by the Social Insurance Fund (FUS). The weakest point of the analysed insurance is a drastic imbalance in the incomes and expenditures of the pensions fund and the use of state budget subsidies for the purpose of financing benefits paid out to farmers. For some time now efforts have been made to limit the system’s financial dependence on the state budget resources. In the middle of the present decade stricter regulations determining access to the system were introduced and this year the amounts of premiums paid by the insured persons from the largest farms have been raised. However, the financial effects of the latest changes in legal regulations have a marginal character. The results of the conducted research suggest, however, that there exist possibilities for increasing the pensions fund’s incomes from premiums.