Nearly 61,000 residents in Kazakhstan secured lifelong pension payments. They purchased annuities worth over 280 billion tenge (over US$675 million). This was stated at a briefing in the Central Communications Service by a spokesperson of Kazakh Agency for Regulation and Development of Financial Market Sagi Azhibek. He recalled that Kazakh citizens can sign the retirement annuity contract from January 1 of this year. The service is available for people aged over 45. They transfer their savings to life insurance companies. The speaker also told about the legislation’s innovations. From this year, spouses and close relatives can combine their pension savings to purchase the annuity from life insurers. For example, if one of them does not have enough money on his or her pension account, while the other has a surplus, both of them will be able to secure lifelong payments and retire earlier due to the joint retirement annuity.
“To date, nine life insurance companies are operating in the insurance market, five of which are licensed and controlled by the government. Retirement annuity payments from a life insurance company are guaranteed by the Insurance Payments Guarantee Fund. This means that in case of bankruptcy of a life insurance company, the Insurance Payments Guarantee Fund will provide uninterrupted payments on retirement annuities and continuity in fulfilling obligations to the insured,” said Sagi Azhibek, Spokesperson of the Kazakh Agency for Regulation and Development of Financial Market.
According to the new rules, to sign the contract, men should have 6.7 million tenge (US$16,153) of savings, and women – nine million (US$21,698). Overall, about 70,000 people in Kazakhstan today have the sufficient amount of savings to purchase the annuity.
