YEL insurance providing security for the self-employed

By far the majority of light entrepreneurs would prefer that their insurance matters be handled in connection with their wage payment. To make this happen, Elo Mutual Pension Insurance Company and Eezy Kevytyrittäjät have established a new collaboration agreement in order to handle the pension insurance matters of self-employed persons.

“The collaboration between Elo and Eezy helps self-employed persons to deal with all administrative background work, such as invoicing, wage payments and legal obligations related to invoicing services, within the same service. The joint interfaces of our systems ensure a seamless service quickly and easily,” says Eero Sallasmaa, Development Director of Elo.

“Light entrepreneurs value the ease of taking out insurance. One of the important starting points of the collaboration between Elo and Eezy is that taking out insurance must be made as effortless as possible. In addition to the shared online service, the collaboration includes guidance for ensuring the validity of social security payments and pension insurances for light entrepreneurs. The operating model improves Eezy’s services and ensures that the light entrepreneurs have less to worry about,” says Saija Hellstén, Managing Director of Eezy Kevytyrittäjät.

New ways of working, such as self-employment and light entrepreneurship, have become significantly more common over the past few years. A light entrepreneur working through an invoicing service does not have their own Business ID. In terms of taxation, a light entrepreneur is regarded as an employee, but when it comes to pension insurance, they are regarded as an entrepreneur. If a light entrepreneur invoices more than EUR 7,800 through an invoicing service company within one year, from the perspective of Finnish employment pension legislation they are obligated to ensure their employment in accordance with the Self-employed Persons’ Pension Act (YEL).

“Both Elo and Eezy are genuinely interested in the position of self-employed persons. We find it important that all kinds of entrepreneurs take care of their insurance coverage as comprehensively as possible. The sickness allowance, maternity and paternity allowance, parental leave allowance as well as unemployment security are also based on the income declared by the entrepreneur. In other words, taking out insurance is not only about securing an entrepreneur's later years,” says Eero Sallasmaa.

“When developing social security, it must be ensured that social security is truly comprehensive and that it is available for everyone, regardless of the person’s form of employment. At Elo we think that self-employed persons, too, are entitled to the benefits of our internationally recognised employment pension system as part of their social security,” Eero Sallasmaa continues.

Further information:

Eero Sallasmaa, Development Director, Elo, tel. +358 (0)50 598 2372

Saija Hellstén, Managing Director, Eezy Kevytyrittäjät, tel. +358 (0)9 4247 5646

Elo Mutual Pension Insurance Company is a large Finnish pension insurance company. Approximately one in three companies and approximately 40 per cent of self-employed persons have selected Elo as their employment pension insurer. Elo is responsible for the future pensions of more than 520,000 employees and entrepreneurs, provides current pensions to about 240,000 pension recipients, and manages investment assets totalling over EUR 25 billion.

Eezy Kevytyrittäjät is the first invoicing service for light entrepreneurs in Finland and has more than 25,000 registered users. The service allows light entrepreneurs to invoice their work while Eezy takes care of all legal obligations related to invoicing services.