Rômulo Saraiva: Lifetime review applies to benefits not mentioned by the STF

By recognizing the lifetime review, the STF (Federal Supreme Court) interrupted a cycle of almost ten years in denying social security demands of great national repercussion. Most jurists did not expect this good news. When Minister Alexandre de Moraes broke the tie in favor of retirees, he was specifically judging the case of a pensioner for time of contribution from Brasília who also wanted to use contributions prior to July 1994 in his calculation. And this legal solution will serve as a reference for the whole country.

However, the lifetime review is not unique to this type of retirement alone. It can be used to increase various benefits, such as pensions (by age, special, for the person with a disability, permanent disability), death pension, accident allowance and sickness allowance (temporary disability benefit).

First of all, you need to check the deadline issue. The review needs to be done before the benefit completes ten years of being granted. Anyone who has spent a lot of time at the INSS or in the courts fighting to obtain recognition of the concession, including gaining the right to receive retroactive amounts, should pay more attention, as the period to be counted starts from the request with retroactive effect.

Another point is to do math to see if the review will help you. Bringing old contributions into the new account doesn’t always improve the benefit amount, especially if old salaries are low.

Having defined these two issues, another point is the scope of who can benefit. Although the Supreme Court specifically discussed the increase in retirement based on contribution time, the system of using the simple arithmetic average of the highest contribution salaries corresponding to 80% of the entire contribution period involves several other benefits.

It is not only in calculating pensions that the INSS disregards what was paid before July 1994. And by analogy, the review is extended to those who have the same accounting method.

In the case of disability benefits (sick pay, accident benefit and disability retirement) and death pension, their holders can claim a lifetime review, regardless of whether these temporary benefits are active or not. If the insured received the benefit in the past and is currently terminated, it is also possible to request a review, but always remembering the fatal period of up to ten years.

The possibility of reviewing the social security benefit through the application of the definitive rule, when more favorable than the transition rule adopted by the INSS (the one that discards the contributory past prior to July 1994), will be applied to insured persons who joined the General Social Security Regime. Social Security before the publication of Law No. 9,876, which took place on November 26, 1999, and will allow the review of all benefits that have the same form of calculation used in the case of retirement by contribution time, taken to the STF for analysis.

The similarity of the calculation rules, especially the one that provides for the automatic disposal of part of the contributions paid, will allow the whole-life review to be used in other types of social security benefits.