Offering group insurance: what it costs you as an employer

The short answer: an employer contribution of 100 euros to a group insurance costs you roughly 113 euros. You pay a special social security contribution of 8.86 percent and a premium tax of 4.4 percent on it, and the full cost is deductible as a business expense as long as the total pension stays within the 80 percent limit. The same 100 euros as gross salary costs you at least 125 euros in employer contributions and often nets your employee only 40 to 50 euros. If you want to retain technicians and engineers without inflating your payroll, group insurance is therefore the first tool to look at. Below: what exactly you pay, what guarantee you take on, what your sector already requires and where the pitfalls are.

What you pay on every euro of premium

On every payment for the pension and death cover you owe a special social security contribution of 8.86 percent, which you pay through the quarterly declaration. Not on the solidarity component of a social pension scheme, and not on the part the employee contributes. In addition, the insurer charges a premium tax of 4.4 percent on the premiums for pension and death cover; social pension schemes are exempt from it. So count on a total cost of 113.26 euros per 100 euros of premium. The contribution your employee pays themselves is deducted from their net salary and gives them a 30 percent tax reduction, offset straight away in the withholding tax. If you set up a plan with a personal contribution, it costs you nothing extra and your employee sees only a small difference on their payslip.

Deductible, within the 80 percent rule

The premiums are deductible as a business expense provided that the statutory and supplementary pension together, converted into an annual annuity, do not exceed 80 percent of the employee's last normal gross annual salary. For most technical profiles with a contribution of a few percent of salary, that limit is far away; it only becomes a point of attention with high salaries, short careers or large catch-up payments. Your insurer or pension fund calculates the limit per member and tells you when a plan threatens to exceed it. Anything above it is not deductible and is taxed as a benefit for the employee, so never have your plan designed without that check.

100 euros of salary or 100 euros of premium: the comparison

Put the two side by side for a maintenance technician on 3,500 euros gross. If you give a 100 euro gross raise, you pay at least 25 percent employer social security on top, 125 euros in total, and in practice more because of additional contributions. Your employee pays 13.07 percent social security and tax at their marginal rate and keeps 40 to 50 euros net; above roughly 4,250 euros gross, every extra euro falls in the 50 percent bracket. If you put the same 100 euros into their group insurance, it costs you 113 euros and the full 100 euros lands in their pension account, where it earns at least 2.50 percent a year. At payout, after the RIZIV contribution (health insurance), the solidarity contribution and 10 percent tax, they keep roughly 84 percent of it if they work until retirement. How that calculation works for your employee is set out in group insurance payout in Belgium: how much tax do you pay?. You know the downside too: the money is only available at 66, and a young technician feels 50 euros net a month today more keenly than 84 euros thirty years from now. That is why group insurance works best as the foundation under a package, not as a replacement for a market-rate gross salary. How to build that package is covered in fringe benefits for technical profiles.

The minimum return is your promise

The Supplementary Pensions Act (WAP) imposes a return guarantee: since 1 January 2025 it is 2.50 percent a year on employer contributions in defined contribution plans and on all personal contributions, after 1.75 percent in the years 2016 to 2024. The FSMA sets the rate annually between 1.75 and 3.75 percent. The law gives that guarantee to the employee, not the insurer: if the plan does not reach it, you as the employer must make up the difference when the employee leaves or retires. With a classic branch 21 group insurance, the insurer covers that risk with its own guaranteed interest rate; with a branch 23 plan or a pension fund, you bear it yourself. So do not just ask your broker about the cost, but also about who bears the shortfall if the market goes against you for a few years.

Sector pension plan, DB2P and Wijninckx: what to check

There is no general legal obligation to offer group insurance, but many technical sectors have a sector pension plan to which you as an employer are required to contribute: in metalworking, construction, food and chemicals it runs through a sector fund, with a percentage of gross salary set by the sector collective agreement. For white-collar staff at electrotechnical companies in PC 200, for example, the employer contribution rises from 1.1 percent in 2026 to 1.65 percent in 2027, and for white-collar construction staff via Constructiv to 1.80 percent since 1 January 2026. If you prefer your own plan, opting out is only possible with a plan that is at least equivalent, and never for the solidarity component. Your insurer must report every payment in the DB2P database of Sigedis; your employees see that balance on mypension.be. Finally, watch out for the Wijninckx contribution: from contribution year 2026 you pay 12.5 percent, previously 3 percent, on the growth in reserves of anyone who exceeds the pension threshold of roughly 99,500 euros a year, statutory and supplementary pension combined. Sigedis calculates it and notifies you. For an ordinary technician this does not come into play; for a well-paid plant manager with a generous plan, it does. Recalculate the total payroll cost of a new profile with our payroll cost calculator and include the group insurance as a fixed line.