Is it too late to join A-kasse?

I have been in full-time employment in Denmark since July 2015. Our HR department completely ignored to advice me on joining A-kasse. Now my employment will end January 2017. What is my situation, is it too late to join to claim any benefits? Is it any help that I have been member of a kasse in Finland until 2016? I am originally Finnish but been part of the Danish CPR system since June 2015.
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1 Answer

1

Hi,

in the following we assume you plan to stay in Denmark after your contract end in january 2017.

So it is the danish rules we talk about.

For being eligible for unemployment benefits after these rules you must:

  1. Have been member of an A-kasse for at least 1 year before you apply for benefits. And it has to be the last 12 months. Membership-periods from earlier years can not be used.
  2. You must have worked for at least 52 weeks during the last 3 years.

With both requirements it is possible to transfer rights from one EU country to another, under certain conditions:

  1. you must apply for membership of an danish A-kasse within 8 weeks after you ceased to be insured in another EU country, in your case Finland.
  2. And further there is the requirement that you within the 8 weeks must begin work in Denmark of at least 296 hours over 12 weeks / 3 months. The last requirement does not apply to Nordic nationals (including finish nationals), who within the last 5 years have been working 52 weeks in Denmark (ie. have meet the working requirement mentioned above), or have received Unemployment benefits.

The two requirements is mandatory, meaning there is no chance that any A-kasse will make exemptions from them.

So the answer: Yes it is too late to join now if you expect unemployment benefits from januar. But off course/hopefully you can find new job and then it will be good to join the A-kasse. The period of insurance/working hours you will be able to transfer to Finland if you move to Finland again. 

Hope it clarifies, otherwise please comment this..

Best regards,

Anders

www.a-kasser.dk

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