Federal Social Court, 20 February 2014, Ref: B 14 AS 10/13 R
When assessing the need for assistance in accordance with SGB II, the job centre checks both the "consideration of income" (§ 11 SGB II) and the "consideration of assets" (§ 12 SGB II).
When examining the consideration of assets, the question of whether the applicant must utilise any life insurance with priority over the ALG II claim is repeatedly the subject of supreme court rulings.
Particularly if the applicant is only applying for Hartz 4 for a short period of time, a precise examination is necessary to determine whether the realisation of the life insurance would represent an unreasonable hardship for the applicant.
§ Section 12 para. 3 sentence 1 no. 6 SGB II stipulates that property and rights are not to be considered as assets if their realisation is obviously uneconomical or would cause particular hardship for the person concerned.
In the above-mentioned decision of the Federal Social Court, the court had to decide whether the job centre had rightly rejected the claimant's entitlement to payment of 3 months of unemployment benefit II with reference to her life insurance policies.
Facts of the Case The plaintiff had submitted an application for ALG II (Harzt 4) to the defendant job centre for the period from 1 May 2007 to 31 July 2007.
The job centre rejected this application with reference to the claimant's assets. These assets included a current account with 1870.17 euros, a savings account with 2125.36 euros, a BHW life insurance policy with a surrender value of 6493 euros and a life insurance policy with Hamburg-Mannheimer with a surrender value of 1440.14 euros.
The claimant initially appealed against the Jobcentre's decision to the Social Court of Schleswig, which dismissed the claim (S 16 AS 2114/07).
The claimant appealed against the judgement of the Social Court to the Schleswig-Holstein Regional Social Court, which was also dismissed (L3 AS 93/10).
The claimant appealed against this decision to the Federal Social Court.
Federal Social CourtThe Federal Social Court has now overturned the judgement of the Regional Social Court and referred the case back to the Regional Social Court.
In the opinion of the BSG, in order to assess the claim to Alg II asserted by the plaintiff only for the months of May and June 2007, it was decisive to what extent her BHW life insurance would stand in the way of this as realisable assets in accordance with § 12 SGB II.
The Regional Social Court had affirmed this because the claimant's loss on cancellation of the BHW insurance was only 16.71% and was therefore reasonable.
This view cannot be followed because the uneconomical nature of the realisation of a life insurance policy cannot be assessed solely on the basis of the loss ratio, but numerous other factors, such as term, maturity, notice period, etc., must also be taken into account.
However, the Regional Social Court did not make any findings on these factors. There were also no findings on possible particular hardship, especially as benefits were only requested for a short period of time.
Source: Federal Social Court
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