In the past year, over 52 million inquiries were received by the National Insurance Institute: approximately 771,000 of which came through personal inquiries on the institution's website, 121,000 through hotlines (more than 5 million inquiries), 41,000 at public reception, and another approximately 41,000 at self-service stations across the country.
Since the Corona crisis, the National Insurance Institute has opened a large number of public service channels - both face-to-face and digitally, and there appears to be a fundamental change in inquiries, the vast majority of which are becoming digital.
While before the Corona crisis, about 21 million inquiries were received through the National Insurance website, today the number has jumped to about 40 million inquiries.
Want more news, videos and stories? Join the Haredim 10 WhatsApp channel >>
In frontal public reception before the Corona pandemic, approximately 3.2 million inquiries were received across the country, and today the number has dropped to approximately 2.1 million.
It should be noted that the number of inquiries decreased compared to the period of the Corona crisis, when the total number of inquiries reached approximately 80 million inquiries across all service channels in 2020, and approximately 62 million inquiries in 2021.
Over the past year, the National Insurance Institute has transferred approximately 4 million payments each month to Israeli citizens for a total amount of approximately 115 billion shekels.
The most highly paid pension is the senior citizen pension, which is paid to more than a million citizens and is estimated at approximately 36 billion.
The second largest allowance paid in the past year is a general disability allowance, special services, and a disabled child for about 470,000 residents, totaling about 23 billion shekels.
This was followed by unemployment benefits paid to approximately 60,000 unemployed people at a cost of approximately 3 billion shekels.
Then a nursing care allowance for about 300,000 senior citizens in nursing homes at a cost of about 14 billion shekels.
Child benefits were paid for more than 3 million children in Israel, totaling approximately 8.6 billion shekels. Work-related injuries were paid to approximately 140,000 residents, totaling approximately 7.1 billion shekels.
National Insurance is the main source of funding for benefits, and of the approximately 115 million benefits paid, 103 billion shekels were paid from the National Insurance budget and 12 billion from the Ministry of Finance.
In parallel with the actuarial situation of the National Insurance, which is still on the agenda, the collection from salaried employees is significantly the largest and is collected from over 4 million salaried employees annually and approximately 704 thousand self-employed individuals.
National Insurance collections are based on a 'mutual guarantee' system, in which current revenues pay benefits to those who need them, while at the same time guaranteeing a future insurance period for the citizen.
Additionally, in the past year, isolation compensation payments were paid to the self-employed in a total amount of 71 million shekels and approximately 178 million shekels in isolation compensation to employers. The value of the exemption for employers from the Social Security Act, for their employees, was approximately 458 million shekels.
Yarona Shalom, Deputy Director General of the National Insurance Institute: "In recent years and following the Corona crisis, the National Insurance Institute has become more accessible, more available and more digital. We have not given up and will not give up on face-to-face meetings with citizens, but if bureaucracy can be prevented and citizens can be easily answered, what a good thing. There is no doubt that the National Insurance Institute, which takes care of all residents of Israel at all stages of their lives from birth to the end of their days, is the most important social organization and address in Israel and makes it possible, especially in times of distress, to provide relief and assistance to those who need it.".
