After you leave your employer
After leaving your employer, you will lose your eligibility for membership in the Health Insurance Society and must join the appropriate medical care insurance program based on your individual circumstances.
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- Return your health insurance card soon after leaving employment.
- You can remain a member of the Health Insurance Society if you meet certain conditions.
- In some cases, you may continue to receive benefits even after losing your eligibility as an insured person.
Please return your health insurance card within five days after loss of eligibility as an insured person when you leave your employer. Thereafter, you must join the appropriate medical care insurance program based on your individual circumstances.
Medical care insurance available after leaving your employer
Remaining a member of the Society
While you will lose your eligibility as an insured person under the health insurance system the day after you leave your employer, a system is available whereby you can remain an insured person under the Health Insurance Society if you meet certain conditions. This is known as the system for Voluntarily and Continuously Insured Persons.
Who can become a Voluntarily and Continuously Insured Person
To become a Voluntarily and Continuously Insured Person, you must meet all of the following conditions:
- You must have lost your eligibility as an insured person under the health insurance system for specific reasons: for example, you left your employer.
- You must have been an insured person for at least two consecutive months prior to the date you lost your eligibility.
- You must apply to become a Voluntarily and Continuously Insured Person within 20 days after the date on which you lost your eligibility.
How long you can be a Voluntarily and Continuously Insured Person?
You can be a Voluntarily and Continuously Insured Person for up to two years.
* Since you must join the Medical Care System for the Advanced Elderly when you reach the age of 75, you will lose your eligibility as a Voluntarily and Continuously Insured Person at that point, even if two years have yet to pass.
Insurance premiums you are required to pay
You must pay the full amount of the applicable insurance premiums yourself. The employer will not pay any portion of your premiums after you become a Voluntarily and Continuously Insured Person. Remember to pay the premiums by the 10th of each month.
Voluntarily and continuously insured persons also pay full insurance premiums in the event they are aged between 40 and 64.
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Standard monthly remuneration
Insurance premiums are calculated based on the standard monthly remuneration at the time of loss of eligibility.
Details of insurance benefits
Although you will not receive Maternity Allowance or Injury and Sickness Allowance, you will receive all other statutory benefits and additional benefits in the same way as you did when you were with your employer.
* If you are eligible to receive benefits even after loss of eligibility, you will be paid Maternity Allowance or Injury and Sickness Allowance as well.
Loss of eligibility as a Voluntarily and Continuously Insured Person
You will lose your eligibility as a Voluntarily and Continuously Insured Person on the following day (the same day in cases 4 and 5) in any of the following cases:
- Two years have passed since the date you became an insured person.
- Upon your death
- You do not pay your insurance premiums by the date due.
- You begin employment and become an insured person under another health insurance or similar program.
- You join the Medical Care System for the Advanced Elderly as an insured person, etc.
- If you applied to have your status as a Voluntarily and Continuously Insured Person cleared, the last day of the month including the date on which the application was received
Application Form for disqualification as a Voluntarily and Continuously Insured Person
Note to persons considering becoming voluntarily and continuously insured persons
Since April 2010, measures have been implemented whereby National Health Insurance premiums (tax) for those who have lost their jobs for reasons such as bankruptcy, layoffs, or failure to renew employment contracts will be based on income calculated at 30% of income during the previous year, for the period from the day after employment ends through the end of the following fiscal year.
For persons eligible under these measures, the cost of insurance premiums under National Health Insurance may be lower than under the system for voluntarily and continuously insured persons. Please check with your municipal government. (You must apply to your municipal government to receive this reduction.)
You can receive benefits even after leaving your employer.
In some cases, persons who have been insured persons continuously for at least one year prior to leaving employment may be eligible to receive Injury and Sickness Allowance, the Childbirth and Childcare Lump-Sum Grant, Maternity Allowance, and funeral expenses, even after losing their eligibility.
However, in such cases, additional benefits will not be paid.
Benefits paid after leaving employment (benefits paid to the insured person only, not to dependents)
| Conditions for payment: | You must have been receiving, or satisfied the requirements to receive, Injury and Sickness Allowance at the time you left employment and remain unable to work due to treatment of the sickness or injury |
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| Payment period: | For a total of 18 months counted from the payment start date of Injury and Sickness Allowance through the payment period
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| Conditions for payment: | You must have been receiving, or satisfied the requirements to receive, Maternity Allowance at the time you left employment |
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| Payment period: | Until the end of the period for receipt of Maternity Allowance |
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| Conditions for payment: | The childbirth must have taken place within six months after loss of eligibility |
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| Conditions for payment: | (1) Within three months after loss of eligibility (there is no requirement to have been an insured person for a period of one year or longer) (2) While receiving Injury and Sickness Allowance or Maternity Allowance (3) In the event of death taking place within three months after receipt of these benefits ended |
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