Beneficiaries/ Requirements

• This benefit is part of the protective actions of the General Social Security Scheme and the Special Sea Workers, Self-employed Workers and Coal Mining Schemes. Self-employed workers' characteristics:

They must be included under the voluntary improvement of the protective actions arising from work-related injury and occupational disease contingencies and have previously or simultaneously opted for temporary disability benefit coverage.

They must be up-to-date with contribution payments.

It is necessary to determine whether the disability happened unexpectedly as a result of an injury (work-related or not) or a disease (common or occupational):

• If it is an injury, the normal job will be considered as that normally carried out by the worker at the time of the injury.
  
• In disease cases (common or occupational), the normal job will be considered is the worker's main activity during the 12 months prior to the date when the temporary disability resulting from the permanent disability would have commenced.
  
  

If the disability results from an injury or occupational disease, the contribution period is not required, unless it is an absolute permanent disability or serious disability due to a non-work-related injury and the worker is not in an assimilated contributor situation, in which case a generic contribution period of 15 years and a specific contribution period of 3 years within the last 10 years will be required.

The "contribution days" are calculated to certify the minimum generic and specific contributory periods (extra payments).

Permanent disability only exists if the checking of incapacitating injuries is accompanied by the right to receive the benefit, therefore meeting the requirements established (contribution period,...).

As a result, permanent disability will not be declared in any of its degrees, if the worker does not show the remaining requirements for producing the right to economic benefit.

If the worker's maximum TD  period (545 days) has not run out, the days remaining will be assimilated as contribution periods in order to certify the minimum contribution period.

The 10-year period, within which a fifth of the required contribution period must be included, will be calculated from the date when the obligation to pay contributions finished.

One of the requirements for being eligible for this pension is not having  reached retirement age, however:

• If the pension arises from a work-related injury or occupational disease, it is possible to award the permanent disability pension even if on the date of the causal event the worker, having reached retirement age, meets the other requirements for receiving the Social Security system's retirement pension.
  
• If the pension results from a non-work-related injury or common disease and, on the date of the causal event (termination of Temporary Disability">TD, issuing of the EVI opinion or, where appropriate, the application) the worker does not meet the requirements for receiving the system's retirement pension, they will be entitled to a permanent disability pension, the amount of which will be equivalent to the result of applying to the base rate the percentage for the minimum contribution period established at all times for receiving the retirement pension (50%).

Only contributions made for a job activity and/or contributory unemployment will be valid for these purposes.

If a special agreement has be entered into, once the initial refusal decision has been issued, these contributions cannot be calculated to certify the contribution period if the worker's medical condition is identical to that upon which the EVI proposal was based.

55% of the base pension can be increased by a further 20% for workers over 55 years old, who are in a total permanent disability situation, if it is presumed, due to their age, lack of general or specialised preparation and the social and working circumstances of their place of residence, that they have problems in finding a job in an activity different to their normal one.

For self-employed workers, there is an additional requirement that the pensioner is not the owner of an agricultural or maritime-fishing business or the owner, tenant, usufructuary or similar of a commercial or industrial establishment.