Long-term Delinquent Businesses Owe Over 1 Trillion Won in Four Major Insurance Premiums Last Year

[Financial News] As of the end of last year, the total amount of overdue four major insurance premiums at long-term delinquent businesses—those with more than 13 months of unpaid premiums—reached approximately 1.12 trillion won.
According to data received on the 30th by the office of Ahn Sang-hoon, a member of the People Power Party on the Health and Welfare Committee of the National Assembly, from the National Health Insurance Service (NHIS), there were 23,000 businesses with long-term overdue National Health Insurance premiums as of the end of last year. The number of delinquent businesses for the National Pension Service (NPS) was 31,000, for Employment Insurance (EI) 25,000, and for Workers' Compensation Insurance 27,000. The combined overdue insurance premiums for these businesses last year totaled 1.1217 trillion won.
For the National Pension Service (NPS), the business with the longest delinquency last year had not paid for 213 months—over 17 years—accumulating 160 million won in unpaid premiums. The business with the highest single delinquency owed more than 2.6 billion won over a period of two years and two months.
One online information service business in Songpa District accumulated about 430 million won in unpaid premiums over 46 months from March 2017 to October 2021, but the case was closed after five years had passed since the last registration change. This year, a sole proprietorship in Ulsan Metropolitan City owed a total of 320 million won over 43 months from February 2017 to August 2020, but the case was closed after the business owner became disabled.
For similar reasons, the NHIS reported that in the past ten years, 45,431 businesses with overdue NPS premiums had their cases closed, with a total outstanding amount of 115.7 billion won.
As of August this year, the overdue amounts for the National Pension Service and National Health Insurance have already surpassed last year’s totals. NPS delinquencies increased by 3% compared to last year, while National Health Insurance delinquencies rose by 2.1%.
There are concerns that the burden of unpaid insurance premiums ultimately falls on workers. For the National Pension Service, unpaid periods are not counted toward the subscription period. Employees must pay their own share again to receive even 50% of the subscription period benefits, and to be fully covered, they must pay both their own and the employer’s share.
In the past ten years, 855 businesses have been criminally charged due to such delinquencies. The total amount of overdue premiums involved was 41.8 billion won, but only 8.2 billion won—about 19%—was recovered through prosecution.
Ahn Sang-hoon stated, "Employer delinquency shifts the burden onto workers," and emphasized, "We must strengthen the collection system for delinquent employer insurance premiums and establish measures to protect employees from harm."
[email protected] Choi Hye-rim Reporter