When you leave your employer

Please return your health insurance card within five days after loss of eligibility as an insured person when you leave your employer. Thereafter, you must join the appropriate medical care insurance program based on your individual circumstances.

Medical care insurance available after leaving your employer

Remaining a member of the Society

While you will lose your eligibility as an insured person under the health insurance system the day after you leave your employer, a system is available whereby you can remain an insured person under the Health Insurance Society if you meet certain conditions. This is known as the system for Voluntarily and Continuously Insured Persons.

Who can become a Voluntarily and Continuously Insured Person

To become a Voluntarily and Continuously Insured Person, you must meet all of the following conditions:

1. You must have lost your eligibility as an insured person under the health insurance system for specific reasons: for example, you left your employer.
2. You must have been an insured person for at least two consecutive months prior to the date you lost your eligibility.
3. You must apply to become a Voluntarily and Continuously Insured Person within 20 days after the date on which you lost your eligibility.

How long you can be a Voluntarily and Continuously Insured Person

You can be a Voluntarily and Continuously Insured Person for up to two years.

• ** Since you must join the Medical Care System for the Advanced Elderly when you reach the age of 75, you will lose your eligibility as a Voluntarily and Continuously Insured Person at that point, even if two years have yet to pass.

Insurance premiums you are required to pay

You must pay the full amount of the applicable insurance premiums yourself, including the amount paid by the insured person and the amount previously paid by your employer. The employer will not pay any portion of your premiums after you become a Voluntarily and Continuously Insured Person. Remember to pay the premiums by the 10th of each month.

Standard monthly remuneration

The standard remuneration used as the basis for calculating your insurance premiums will be either your standard monthly remuneration when you lost your eligibility or the average standard monthly remuneration of all insured persons in the Health Insurance Society at the end of September of the previous year, whichever is lower.

Payment of insurance premiums

You can choose one of three ways to pay your insurance premiums: monthly payments; prepayment for six months (April-September and October-March); and prepayment for twelve months (April-March). If you choose to pay monthly, you must pay the premiums by the 10th of each month.
A discount applies to prepayments (see “Premiums for Voluntarily and Continuously Insured Persons at a Glance,” “Table of Advance Premiums for Voluntarily and Continuously Insured Persons”).
You will automatically lose your eligibility if you fail to pay your premiums by the deadline.

Details of insurance benefits

Although you will not receive Maternity Allowance or Injury and Sickness Allowance, you will receive all other statutory benefits and additional benefits in the same way as you did when you were with your employer.

• ** If you are eligible to receive benefits even after loss of eligibility, you will be paid Maternity Allowance or Injury and Sickness Allowance as well.

Loss of eligibility as a Voluntarily and Continuously Insured Person

You will lose your eligibility as a Voluntarily and Continuously Insured Person in any of the following cases:

1. Two years have passed since the date you became an insured person.
2. Upon your death
3. You do not pay your insurance premiums by the date due.
4. You begin employment and become an insured person under another health insurance or similar program.*
5. You join the Medical Care System for the Advanced Elderly as an insured person, etc.
6. You apply to cancel your eligibility as insured person for a reason other than 1-5 above (from January 1, 2022) *
   However, in case 6, the date of loss of eligibility will be the first of the month following the month in which the Health Insurance Society receives the Application Form for Disqualification as Health Insurance Voluntarily and Continuously Insured Person.
   • * We ask those starting new employment or applying to cancel eligibility to promptly submit the Application Form for Decertification as Health Insurance Voluntarily and Continuously Insured Person to the Health Insurance Society. (If you are starting new employment, attach a copy of your health insurance card from your new employer or other such documentation.)

You can receive benefits even after leaving your employer

In some cases, persons who have been insured persons continuously for at least one year prior to leaving employment may be eligible to receive Injury and Sickness Allowance, the Childbirth and Childcare Lump-Sum Grant, Maternity Allowance, and funeral expenses, even after losing their eligibility.

However, in such cases, additional benefits will not be paid.

Benefits paid after leaving employment (benefits paid to the insured person only, not to dependents)

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If you take time off from work due to sickness

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If you take time off from work for childbirth

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Childbirth

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Death

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