Preparing for retirement is also work

Agirc-Arrco is offering 400,000 meetings this year, for those who want to look into their file. What’s the point ? For who ? Which profiles? Starting at what age ? Should you come with suitcases of salary slips to these interviews?

Agirc-Arrco is working hard this year. The supplementary pension fund for private sector employees offers 400,000 free retirement preparation meetings. This is twice as much as last year.

franceinfo: What are the issues and who is affected?

Sarah Lemoine: These 400,000 appointments are intended only for private sector employees. The objective is to provide advice to all people who have questions about their retirement, and to identify possible anomalies, to rectify the situation.

Interviews take place either in an Agirc-Arrco agency (there are 600 in France), or by telephone. From spring, it will also be possible by video. It is recommended to make an appointment, if possible, via the website.

Employees who have reached the age of 55 are warmly invited to take the step. Particularly those who have broken careers, with periods of unemployment, illness, temporary work, or multiple employers over the same period. But there is no age restriction, interviews are open to everyone.

The idea is to study your career report well in advance, so that everything goes well on the big day?

According to the Court of Auditors, one in seven new retirement files still contains a financial error in 2022. The vast majority, to the disadvantage of policyholders. Because salary slips are missing, because the job at McDonald’s in the summer of ’83 was forgotten. Because periods of compensated unemployment or illness have not been reported correctly. Quarters or points may then be missing for the calculation of the supplementary pension. With the end result being a lower pension.

How should you prepare for your interviews?

“There’s no point coming with suitcases or boxes of pay slips”, specifies Frédéric Roulier, retirement product director at Agirc-Arrco. On the other hand, it’s good to have looked at his career report on the website. And use the simulator which calculates the pension amount. This allows you to come up with specific questions. “Why do I have a quarter and 12 points?” “Do I have a long career or not?” “I have three children, does that matter?”

And when the time comes to retire, and you have to apply for your pension, how long before should you start the process?

“Six months before is enough,” says Frédéric Roulier. It is important to remember this, because “nearly a quarter of policyholders start too late each year. Either a month before departure or completely after”. Women aged 67 are over-represented among these latecomers.