Product Specification#
Status: Draft, 2026-08-29 (access date for every citation below).
Scope note. This is a standardized composite specification assembled for reference
liability cash-flow modelling of a German klassische Riester-Rentenversicherung — the
general-account deferred annuity, sold to an individual, certified as an
Altersvorsorgevertrag (the statutory contract type of the AltZertG) and therefore drawing the
state Zulage (subsidy) and carrying the statutory 100 % Beitragsgarantie. It describes no
single insurer’s contract. [S#] and [R#] tags refer to the source list in sources.md (numbering
carried from _research/riester_rente.md and frozen — never renumbered, with unused ids simply
omitted); [REG-R#] tags refer to the cross-product reference library
references/regulatory-and-actuarial-references.md, whose own R1–R56 numbering is separately
frozen. std marks a standardization introduced for the reference implementation; each
std row carries a numbered footnote giving the rationale and, where one exists, the observed
range. unverified marks a claim no search result corroborated.
How this composite is built, and why it is built the other way round from frlib’s. In
frlib/products/temporaire_deces the representative design was the carrier whose document published
the most; here that was impossible when this page was drafted and is, unusually, largely
unnecessary. The carrier evidence is now thin rather than absent: three wordings were retrieved
and read — the classic GDV Musterbedingungen [S2] and two insurer AVB, CosmosDirekt’s LA 1005 A
[S4] and Debeka’s B LV 94 [S6] — so one full numbered charge basis, two carrier Rechnungszinsen
and one Rentenfaktor construction are now in hand, while no Überschuss declaration and no
market-wide level was established at any house for any year (gaps 12, 13). One observation is not
a market, so the composite’s levels stay std and say where they differ from the one tariff in
hand. But the
half of this product that makes it a Riester contract rather than a private annuity
is not a composite at all: the Zulagen, the eligibility rules, the Mindesteigenbeitrag, the
guarantee, the earliest payout age, the 30 % lump-sum cap, the five-year cost spreading, the
Wechselrecht and the taxation are statute, identical for every provider and every chassis R1
R6 R7 R9 R10 R12 R14 REG-R42 REG-R43. The composite therefore takes every
statutory parameter as fact and makes every carrier parameter std, anchored so the worked
example reproduces exactly.
Retrieval conditions, stated because a reader of this page alone must learn them here. This page
was drafted with no research channel at all — direct HTTP egress was blocked by an organisation
network policy and the session’s WebSearch budget was exhausted before this product’s research
began — so its first draft rested on the authoring model’s own knowledge of German pension and
insurance law, disciplined by tagging every specific number, with a handful of facts inherited from a
sibling delib research session [S3] [S4] [S5] R22 REG-R44. It has since been re-verified
against the primary documents: the statutes were read as canonical XML with each law’s Stand
recorded, and the GDV model wordings, two insurer AVB and four statutory
Produktinformationsblätter were retrieved as PDFs and read. Of the forty-two source entries behind
this product, twenty-six now record Retrieved: yes (62 %), two are part-retrieved and fourteen
are not — those fourteen being documents that could not be located rather than documents behind a
paywall, and sources.md names each. So a delib citation here is a certificate where its entry
says Retrieved: yes, and a pointer where it does not: treat the statutory half of this page as
read and the carrier levels as provisional. Out of scope, named so the boundary is explicit:
Wohn-Riester in both limbs R3 R13 R19 [S13]; the Riester-Fondssparplan and
Riester-Banksparplan [S9]–[S12]; the fondsgebundene Riester wrapper [S1], whose chassis is
products/fondsgebundene_rentenversicherung/; the Basisrente of Schicht 1,
products/basisrente/; Riester inside the betriebliche Altersversorgung; and
Gruppenversicherung.
Product overview and market role#
A Riester contract is an ordinary private-law contract — here a Lebensversicherungsvertrag governed by the VVG REG-R22 — that has additionally been certified under the Altersvorsorgeverträge-Zertifizierungsgesetz R1 R2 REG-R43. Certification does not change the contract’s legal nature; every VVG mechanic that reaches a Schicht-3 deferred annuity reaches this one too, subject to three AltZertG overrides. Those three overrides are the whole product:
Money comes in from the state, as a contribution rather than a benefit R8 R9. § 90 Abs. 2 EStG has the Zentrale Zulagenstelle für Altersvermögen (ZfA) pay the Zulage to the provider, and “Der Anbieter hat die erhaltenen Zulagen unverzüglich den begünstigten Verträgen gutzuschreiben” R11; it is then invested and taxed at the end like any other contribution, and it never reaches the saver’s bank account. Both retrieved carrier wordings go further than the statute and apply each Zulage to increase the insured benefit, computed at the date of receipt on the tariff in force at inception [S2] [S4] — a mechanic this model does not represent, crediting the Zulage to the account instead.
A guarantee is compulsory: AltZertG § 1 Abs. 1 Satz 1 Nr. 3 requires the provider to promise “dass zu Beginn der Auszahlungsphase zumindest die eingezahlten Altersvorsorgebeiträge für die Auszahlungsphase zur Verfügung stehen und für die Leistungserbringung genutzt werden” R1 REG-R43. That the Zulagen count too is not settled by the statutory words — EStG § 82 defines Altersvorsorgebeiträge as what the saver pays R8 — but is settled by the wordings, which promise “mindestens die bis dahin gezahlten Beiträge und die uns zugeflossenen staatlichen Zulagen” [S2] [S4] [S6]. Without the promise there is no certification and so no subsidy, which makes the Beitragsgarantie the entry ticket rather than a feature.
The exit is closed. Surrender is permitted by contract law and punished by tax law: a schädliche Verwendung triggers repayment of all Zulagen credited and all § 10a relief granted, and taxes the return on the subsidised part R14 REG-R42.
In the Alterseinkünftegesetz taxonomy R18 REG-R38 this is Schicht 2 — subsidised supplementary provision, relieved on the way in and taxed in full on the way out under § 22 Nr. 5 EStG R12, with no Ertragsanteil. Schicht 1 (Basisrente) is relieved more generously and is completely illiquid; Schicht 3 is unrelieved and liquid. Riester sits between them on both axes, and is in the German market’s own description the layer designed for the employed household of modest income with children. The subsidy is the product: stripped of the Zulagen and the § 10a deduction, a Riester annuity is a worse Schicht-3 annuity — the same general-account chassis, more constraints, full taxation instead of the Ertragsanteil.
Certification is not endorsement, and no document in this library may suggest otherwise. The certifying authority is the Bundeszentralamt für Steuern (AltZertG § 3 Abs. 1), which took the function over from the BaFin on 1 July 2010 (§ 14 Abs. 5). It confirms only that a contract’s terms satisfy the § 1 criteria, and the statute rules out the wider reading in one sentence worth quoting rather than paraphrasing — § 3 Abs. 3: “Die Zertifizierungsstelle prüft nicht, ob ein Altersvorsorge- oder ein Basisrentenvertrag wirtschaftlich tragfähig und die Zusage des Anbieters erfüllbar ist und ob die Vertragsbedingungen zivilrechtlich wirksam sind.” R2 [S15] REG-R43. The Beitragsgarantie is accordingly the provider’s own, and its ability to honour it is an ordinary solvency question under the VAG REG-R5 REG-R6.
The four certified chassis, and which one this is#
Chassis |
Provider |
Accumulation |
Guarantee met by |
Payout |
In |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Klassische Riester-Rentenversicherung |
life insurer [S2] [S4]–[S8] [S16] |
Deckungskapital at the Rechnungszins, plus Überschussbeteiligung |
the general account and the guaranteed interest |
lifelong annuity at a Rentenfaktor |
yes — |
Fondsgebundene Riester-Rentenversicherung |
life insurer [S1] |
Anlagestock units plus a Garantie-Deckungskapital held in the insurer’s other assets |
in the GDV model wording, a static two-pot split of each contribution and Zulage [S1]; i-CPPI and the dynamisches Hybridmodell are carrier variants the model wording does not describe |
lifelong annuity, the Anlagestock units moved into the general account at Rentenzahlungsbeginn [S1] |
chassis in |
Riester-Fondssparplan; Riester-Banksparplan |
Kapitalverwaltungsgesellschaft — Union Investment [S9], DWS [S10], Deka [S11]; Sparkassen and Volks- und Raiffeisenbanken [S12] |
fund units; a deposit balance plus a bonus scale |
a Depotsteuerungskonzept reallocating between a Sicherungs- and a Chancenkomponente [S9]; trivially on a bank plan, since a deposit cannot fall below its deposits |
Auszahlungsplan to the 85th year then a lifelong annuity [S9] [S10] |
no |
Wohn-Riester (Bausparvertrag, Darlehen) |
Bausparkassen [S13] |
savings, then a loan |
not applicable |
property use plus the Wohnförderkonto |
The model represents the first row, for three reasons: the Beitragsgarantie there interacts with an actuarial mechanic, the Rechnungszins, rather than an asset-allocation algorithm, so its cost is visible in the recursion instead of hidden in a rebalancing rule; the payout is an insurance annuity throughout, so the whole contract is one liability; and the GDV still maintains a 2025-vintage classic model wording, “Stand: 21.07.2025” — a date now read off page 1 of the document itself [S2], reached from the association’s own index [S3], and itself the finding that the classic chassis is a live, separately drafted contract type. A carrier wording of the same vintage exists too: Debeka’s B LV 94 carries an edition date of 1 January 2025 [S6].
Market role, and the fact that this is a closed book#
Riester is closed. The reform is now visible in the statutes themselves. The AltZertG’s Stand line records amendments by “Art. 5 / Art. 6 / Art. 7 G v. 26.5.2026 I Nr. 156”, and the VVG’s by “Art. 12” of the same act R26; AltZertG § 5 now grants certification “nach § 1 Absatz 3 in der ab dem 1. Januar 2027 geltenden Fassung” against a § 1 with new paragraphs 1b, 1c and 1d, and EStG § 93 Abs. 3 Satz 2 Nr. 2 adds a Kleinbetragsrente limb for “eine monatliche Leistung **ab dem
Januar 2027**” under an Auszahlungsplan. So an act of 26 May 2026, BGBl. I 2026 Nr. 156 amended both the certification statute and the contract-law statute with effect from 1 January 2027 — which is the promulgation date and BGBl citation the library previously recorded as not established. Three cautions hold. The consolidation is incomplete: § 5 refers to paragraphs of § 1 the retrieved text does not yet contain, so nothing may be asserted about the new contract forms. The act’s own title was not read, so no
delibdocument may name it. And the Altersvorsorgedepot as the reform’s central vehicle, and the Bundesrat approval date of 8 May 2026, are[unverified]and remain carried from REG-R44. Existing contracts are grandfathered. That changes what this specification is: it describes a product with a very large in-force book whose contractual rights survive — exactly what a liability cash-flow model is for — and it is why the reference implementation’s anchor cell is an in-force contract at a 1 January 2027 valuation date rather than a new policy. The product research file, written without a research channel, recorded the reform status as its most important open question (gap 1); REG-R44 closes it from the cross-product sweep, and this document follows REG-R44.
Scale. Everything here is [unverified] order-of-magnitude recollection: no market figure
was established — the official series was not located in either pass — and gap 2 qualifies all
of it. Of the order of 15 to 16 million certified contracts existed in the mid-2020s, having
peaked near 16,5 million in the late 2010s — insurance contracts roughly two thirds of the
count, fund savings plans roughly a fifth, Wohn-Riester a little over a tenth, bank savings plans
the remainder R25. New business had effectively stopped before the statute closed it, dating
from the 0,25 % Höchstrechnungszins regime of 2022 R22 REG-R15, when the three large fund
houses withdrew their savings plans and a substantial number of insurers followed. A large minority
of the book — commonly reported at a fifth to a quarter, three to four million contracts — is
beitragsfrei gestellt: in force, certified, guaranteed on what was paid, receiving nothing
further R25 unverified. There is no official statistic for that figure at all, and it is
nonetheless the most model-relevant market fact here: Beitragsfreistellung, not surrender, is
this product’s characteristic exit, and a model carrying only a lapse rate has mis-specified the
book. Two counting warnings follow: a contract counted as “Riester” in an official statistic may
be a mortgage R19 [S13]; and a Riester annuity of a given gross amount is worth materially
less to the saver than a Schicht-3 annuity of the same amount, being taxed in full R12 rather
than on the Ertragsanteil REG-R41.
Representative specification#
Every statutory row below is a fact about the product; every carrier row is std, because
nothing carrier-specific was established (gap 12). Amounts in prose use German number formatting
(1 575,00 €); amounts inside tables and code use 1,575.00.
Product identity and issue rules#
Parameter |
Representative value |
Basis |
|---|---|---|
Design type and wrapper |
Single-life klassische Riester-Rentenversicherung: a deferred general-account annuity, participating (Überschussbeteiligung), written as an individual insurance contract under the VVG and certified as an Altersvorsorgevertrag — certification being an administrative act on the tariff, not on the policy. Layer: Schicht 2, relieved in and taxed in full out |
|
Eligibility (a saver attribute, not a policy attribute) |
unmittelbar zulageberechtigt — the closed list of § 10a Abs. 1 EStG, to which § 79 Satz 1 refers: compulsorily insured in the gesetzliche Rentenversicherung, recipients of Besoldung and Amtsbezüge, certain insurance-free and exempted employees with an equivalent Versorgungsrecht, Beamte on unpaid leave, and (Satz 3) Landwirte and persons in an Anrechnungszeit. Arbeitslosengeld recipients, parents in Kindererziehungszeiten and geringfügig Beschäftigte who did not opt out reach the list through the compulsory-insurance limb, not by name. Full Erwerbsminderungs- and Dienstunfähigkeitsrentner come in through § 10a Abs. 1 Satz 4, only if they belonged to a favoured group immediately before the benefit and only until the 67th year is completed. mittelbar — § 79 Satz 2: the spouse of an eligible person, no permanent separation, EU/EEA residence, an own certified contract whose payout phase has not begun, and at least 60 Euro paid to it in the contribution year. Not eligible: the self-employed outside compulsory insurance and members of the berufsständische Versorgungswerke, who are directed to the Basisrente instead — so the two subsidised products are complements addressed to different people, not competitors |
|
Entry ages |
16 to the low sixties in practice; no statutory ceiling, but the accumulation must end at or after the earliest payout age |
envelope std (1) |
Start of the payout phase |
Not before the completed 62nd year of life (AltZertG § 1 Abs. 1 Satz 1 Nr. 2); the completed 60th for contracts concluded before 1 January 2012, by the transitional rule of § 14 Abs. 2, not by § 1. The alternative trigger is a benefit from a statutory old-age scheme beginning earlier. Representative Rentenbeginn attained age 67 |
R1 REG-R43; representative age now evidenced — AltvPIBV § 14 Abs. 1 Nr. 2 sets the statutory model case at the completed 67th year R5 — see (2) |
Sex as a rating factor |
Prohibited by the certification statute itself: AltZertG § 1 Abs. 1 Satz 1 Nr. 2 requires “eine lebenslange und unabhängig vom Geschlecht berechnete Altersversorgung”, and both retrieved wordings say so in terms [S2] [S4]. Riester preceded the general German market, which followed Test-Achats |
R1 R23 REG-R34; the 1 January 2006 and 21 December 2012 dates keep their |
Lives basis |
Single life. A survivor’s benefit is a rider, not a second life in the base design |
R1 [S16] |
Benefit form |
Lifelong Leibrente whose payments “müssen während der gesamten Auszahlungsphase gleich bleiben oder steigen” — a falling annuity is not certifiable, nor is a pure drawdown with no lifelong element. Up to twelve monthly payments may be combined into one. The alternative topology, an Auszahlungsplan with Teilkapitalverrentung from at the latest the 85th year of life, is the fund and bank chassis’s form [S9] [S10] and is not implemented here |
|
New business |
Closed from 1 January 2027; in-force contracts grandfathered |
|
Anchor model cell |
In force at 1 January 2027: female, entry age 47 in 2024, attained age 50, duration 3, Rentenbeginn 67, Rechnungszins 0,25 %, one child born 2010, full Mindesteigenbeitrag, 30 % Teilkapitalauszahlung, 10-year Rentengarantiezeit |
std (3) |
Footnotes to std rows:
No entry-age envelope was established at any carrier (gap 12). Nothing statutory bounds it below; the arithmetic bounds it above, since at 0,25 % a short remaining term leaves almost no room for charges — late entry is real but structurally hostile, and the model point table carries one.
The representative age is no longer a bare std: AltvPIBV § 14 Abs. 1 Nr. 2 fixes the payout start of the statutory Muster model case at the completed 67th year R5, and the retrieved Union Investment sheets show it in use [S9]. On the upper bound, gap 10 is answered contractually rather than statutorily: no statutory ceiling on the start of the payout phase was found, but CosmosDirekt’s flexible Altersgrenze runs “ab der Vollendung des 62. Lebensjahres bis maximal zum Alter von 70 Jahren” [S4], and a DWS fund plan says the payout phase begins “frühestens ab Ihrem 62., spätestens ab Ihrem 83. Geburtstag” [S10]. Carriers set the ceiling; the statute does not.
The anchor is an in-force cell for three reasons: the product is closed to new business from 1 January 2027 REG-R44, so an in-force cell is what the book contains; a 2024-vintage tariff carries a Rechnungszins of 0,25 % R22 REG-R15, the regime the whole guarantee argument turns on; and at duration 3 it is still inside the statutory five-year acquisition-cost spreading window R1, so the anchor exercises the AltZertG charge rule rather than describing it. Model point 2 is the same contract projected from its own inception, reconciling the anchor’s opening balances.
Contributions#
The contribution is the product’s most distinctive mechanic and the one a foreign reader is most likely to get wrong: it is not a premium the insurer sets, but a statutory minimum the saver must reach to draw the subsidy, computed from the saver’s own income and reduced by the Zulagen.
Parameter |
Representative value |
Basis |
|---|---|---|
Mindesteigenbeitrag |
|
|
Percentage |
4 % (§ 86 Abs. 1 Satz 2). The phase-in at 1 % (2002–03), 2 % (2004–05), 3 % (2006–07) and the 2008 arrival at 4 % are historic and not in the consolidated text |
|
Cap on the base; floor on the result |
2 100 €, the § 10a Abs. 1 Satz 1 ceiling itself — § 86 cross-refers to it rather than restating it, so the two can never diverge. Where one spouse is only mittelbar eligible the ceiling rises by 60 € to 2 160 € for the deducting spouse (§ 10a Abs. 3 Satz 3). Sockelbeitrag 60 € a year “ab dem Jahr 2005” (§ 86 Abs. 1 Satz 4). That the 2 100 € has not been raised since 2008 is a historical claim the consolidated text cannot support |
|
Reference income; under-payment |
The base is the previous calendar year’s income, so the entitlement for contribution year |
|
Contribution form (model-point parameter) |
(i) |
(i) R10; (ii) practice unverified; both std (4) |
Payment frequency and its loading |
Annual, half-yearly, quarterly or monthly, normally by SEPA direct debit; fractionation loading 1.0000 / 1.0100 / 1.0200 / 1.0300 |
practice unverified; loading std (5) |
Contribution movements |
Three are routine and all three must be representable: an increase restoring the Mindesteigenbeitrag after a pay rise; a reduction to the Sockelbeitrag; and a complete stop (Beitragsfreistellung) |
|
Unsubsidised contributions |
Money paid above the § 10a ceiling, or in a year of ineligibility, may be paid into the same contract. It enters the account and the guarantee, draws no Zulage, and is taxed on the Ertragsanteil rather than in full |
mindestis the statutory arithmetic and the base case.fixedis retained because German Riester tariffs are in practice written with a nominal level contribution and a wide right to vary it unverified, and because the mittelbar eligible spouse’s contract is a 60 € flat contribution drawing a 175 € Grundzulage R7 R10 REG-R42 — an economically extreme part of the book. Neither form was established at any carrier.One fractionation scale is now established, and it is not the shape the model uses. CosmosDirekt raises its administration charge on the Eigenbeitrag — 2,1 % of each contribution — by 3,0 / 2,0 / 1,0 percentage points for monthly, quarterly and half-yearly payment [S4]: an addition to a charge rate, not a multiplicative loading on the contribution. The model’s 1.0000 / 1.0100 / 1.0200 / 1.0300 scale is therefore still a std placeholder in both level and mechanic. The model treats the loading as a charge rather than money credited to the account, so raising it never enlarges the guarantee, and on that point the carrier agrees: the Verwaltungskosten come out of the contribution before it reaches the Deckungskapital.
Worked cases of the § 86 arithmetic, at the 2018-and-later rates. All rows are [std] derived
— exact arithmetic on the R9 and R10 inputs, shown so that a reader can redo them:
Case |
Prior-year income |
Zulagen |
4 % of income |
Mindesteigenbeitrag |
Eigenbeitrag paid |
Total into the contract |
Zulage share |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
A — single, no children |
40,000.00 |
175.00 |
1,600.00 |
1,425.00 |
1,425.00 |
1,600.00 |
10.94 % |
B — single, at the cap |
60,000.00 |
175.00 |
2,400.00 → 2,100.00 |
1,925.00 |
1,925.00 |
2,100.00 |
8.33 % |
C — one child born 2010 |
30,000.00 |
475.00 |
1,200.00 |
725.00 |
725.00 |
1,200.00 |
39.58 % |
D — two children born from 2008 |
20,000.00 |
775.00 |
800.00 |
25.00 → floor 60.00 |
60.00 |
835.00 |
92.81 % |
E — mittelbar eligible spouse |
not applicable |
175.00 |
not applicable |
60.00 |
60.00 |
235.00 |
74.47 % |
Three consequences the model must reproduce and a test must assert. At the Mindesteigenbeitrag
the Zulagen do not raise the amount invested; they lower the amount the saver pays — the total into
the contract is min(4 % × income, 2 100 €), so the Zulagen substitute for the saver’s own
money, the single most misunderstood feature of the product. The Sockelbeitrag stops binding at
(60 € + Zulagen) / 4 % [std] derived — 5 875 € childless, 10 500 € with one pre-2008 child,
13 375 € with one post-2008 child, 20 875 € with two — below which the contribution is a flat 60 €
plus the Zulagen; case D is the product’s political case and its actuarial oddity at once, a
household paying 60,00 € drawing 775,00 €, a multiple of 12,92× [std] derived. And
the ceiling binds at 2 100 € / 4 % = 52 500 € [std] derived, above which the total is frozen
and the subsidy’s value falls monotonically with income.
The Zulagen#
All four current amounts are now read in §§ 84 and 85 EStG R9 and their [unverified] tags
are removed. The historic rates in the first and third rows are a different matter: a
consolidated statute carries only the rate in force, so the 154,00 € Grundzulage of 2008–2017 and
both phase-in sequences are [unverified] still.
Component |
Amount per year |
From |
Condition |
|---|---|---|---|
Grundzulage |
175.00; the 154.00 of 2008–2017 and the 38.00 / 76.00 / 114.00 phase-in over 2002–07 are |
contribution year 2018 — § 84 Satz 1, “ab dem Beitragsjahr 2018 jährlich 175 Euro” |
one per eligible saver, own contract; raised by R21, phased in by R17, both attributions |
Berufseinsteiger-Bonus |
200.00, “einmalig” (§ 84 Satz 2) |
first contribution year beginning after 31 Dec 2007 for which a Zulage is claimed (§ 84 Satz 3) |
unmittelbar eligible under § 79 Satz 1, “das 25. Lebensjahr noch nicht vollendet” at the start of the contribution year. It is left out of the § 10a Günstigerprüfung (§ 10a Abs. 1 Satz 5) |
Kinderzulage, child born before 1 Jan 2008 |
185.00; the 46.00 / 92.00 / 138.00 phase-in is |
— |
per child “für das gegenüber dem Zulageberechtigten Kindergeld festgesetzt wird” (§ 85 Abs. 1 Satz 1) |
Kinderzulage, child born from 1 Jan 2008 |
300.00 — § 85 Abs. 1 Satz 2, “Für ein nach dem 31. Dezember 2007 geborenes Kind” |
— |
as above; the entitlement lapses for a year in which the Kindergeld is wholly reclaimed (Satz 3) |
The two Kinderzulage rates are a permanent birth-cohort split, not a transition R9 R19:
a household with a child born in 2006 and one born in 2009 draws 185,00 € and 300,00 €
simultaneously, and a model treating the Kinderzulage as a single rate misprices every family
model point that straddles the 2008 boundary. It is credited to the mother’s contract unless
the parents jointly elect otherwise — § 85 Abs. 2 Satz 1 for married opposite-sex parents, Satz 2
allocating it to the Kindergeld recipient for same-sex couples, in both cases with an election
reversible only within the contribution year R9 REG-R42 — and it stops when Kindergeld
stops — normally at the child’s 18th birthday, later during education [unverified]. So the
Zulage stream on a family contract is a step function that falls, typically two or three times
over a contract running thirty or forty years, driven by a household variable the insurance
contract does not observe. That is the most awkward fact in the whole product for a per-policy
projection, and it is why the reference implementation carries the Zulage entitlement as an
external schedule keyed by model point and projection year rather than as a scalar.
The Zulage arrives late. The saver applies through the provider, normally once, by a
Dauerzulageantrag; the ZfA matches the provider’s contribution data against the pension
insurance’s earnings and Kindergeld data and pays the provider, who credits the contract
R11. The chain is now readable end to end. The claim arises at the end of the contribution year
(§ 88); the application runs to the end of the second calendar year after it (§ 89 Abs. 1), or
under a Dauerzulageantrag the provider transmits “bis zum Ablauf des auf das Beitragsjahr folgenden
Kalenderjahres” (§ 89 Abs. 3); the ZfA then has the money paid to the provider, who “hat die
erhaltenen Zulagen unverzüglich den begünstigten Verträgen gutzuschreiben” (§ 90 Abs. 2). So the
Zulage for year t is a cash inflow in t + 1, and the month is prescribed for disclosure
purposes: AltvPIBV § 9 Abs. 3 requires every Produktinformationsblatt calculation to assume “dass
die Zulagen jeweils am 15. Mai nach dem Beitragsjahr dem Vertrag gutgeschrieben werden” R5.
Gap 6 is closed on both limbs it recorded. The credit remains provisional: § 90 Abs. 3 lets the
ZfA recognise a wrong entitlement up to the end of the second year after determination, obliges the
provider to debit the account, and has the quarter’s reclaims remitted “bis zum zehnten Tag des dem
Kalendervierteljahr folgenden Monats” — so reversals are settled quarterly. What is still not
established is the rate at which they occur, which is experience data, not statute (gap 16).
Benefit provisions#
Parameter |
Representative value |
Basis |
|---|---|---|
Beitragsgarantie |
The wording, as the GDV drafts it: “Wir garantieren, dass zum Rentenzahlungsbeginn (Beginn der Auszahlungsphase) mindestens die bis dahin gezahlten Beiträge und die uns zugeflossenen staatlichen Zulagen für die vereinbarten Leistungen zur Verfügung stehen.” Contributions securing verminderte Erwerbsfähigkeit, Dienstunfähigkeit or Hinterbliebene are left out of account, “höchstens jedoch 20 % der Gesamtbeiträge”. It survives Beitragsfreistellung and is reduced by an Eigenheimbetrag withdrawal or a Versorgungsausgleich deduction |
[S2] § 1 Abs. 10 and § 12 Abs. 5, on AltZertG § 1 Abs. 1 Satz 1 Nr. 3 R1 REG-R43; the same words at [S4] § 1 Abs. 2 |
What the guarantee is not |
Not a value at any other date; not a floor on the surrender value; not preserved in real terms; not a guarantee of the annuity, only of the capital; and not extended to the rider premiums |
R1; see Contractual mechanics |
Conversion capital |
|
|
Teilkapitalauszahlung |
Up to 30 % of the capital available at the start of the payout phase, without schädliche Verwendung; the remainder must be annuitised. AltZertG § 1 Abs. 1 Satz 1 Nr. 4 Buchst. a in terms, and both retrieved wordings implement it — the GDV’s at a company-individual percentage footnoted “Maximal 30 Prozent” [S2], CosmosDirekt’s at “bis zu 30 vom Hundert” [S4]. Representative election 30 % taken |
|
Annuity |
Lifelong monthly Leibrente, paid monthly in advance, constant or rising |
R1; monthly-in-advance |
Conversion basis |
The guaranteed Rentenfaktor struck at inception — euros of monthly annuity per 10 000 € of capital converted — is compared at Rentenbeginn with the carrier’s then-current factor, and the higher applies. Now established for a Riester tariff, and only for part of one — see (8) |
[S6] § 4 Abs. 3; level std (8), gap 9 |
Mortality basis for the annuity |
The German annuitant table family — DAV 2004 R, generational, in its unisex application. Proprietary, not public, not redistributed here |
|
Rentengarantiezeit |
Permitted and drafted into the model wording and both carrier wordings; compatible with the constant-or-rising requirement, and the förderunschädliche route for an early death in payment. Representative length 10 years — which is the length the GDV’s own worked example uses [S2] § 1 Abs. 7 and Debeka’s [S6] § 1 Abs. 5 |
|
Surplus in payment |
Permitted, but the constant-or-rising requirement constrains which surplus system a Riester contract may use: a system whose declared component can be reduced would make the total annuity fall. Base run none — a constant annuity |
|
Death |
Before Rentenbeginn, the Deckungskapital — no longer a std choice but the model wording’s own, and named in its title: “Wenn Sie vor dem Rentenzahlungsbeginn sterben, zahlen wir das Deckungskapital” [S2] § 1 Abs. 6, and the same at [S4] § 1 Abs. 4 and [S6] § 1 Abs. 4. Transfer to a surviving spouse’s own certified contract is förderunschädlich (§ 93 Abs. 1 Satz 4 Buchst. c EStG) and, in the GDV wording, free of charge; conversion into a lifelong Hinterbliebenenrente is the other förderunschädliche route; payment to any other heir is schädlich and the Rückzahlungsbetrag is deducted first. After Rentenbeginn, payments for the remainder of a Rentengarantiezeit — which Debeka may commute to the present value of the outstanding instalments [S6] |
|
Kleinbetragsrente |
The provider may commute the whole capital to a lump sum without schädliche Verwendung, taxed under the Fünftelregelung (§ 22 Nr. 5 Satz 13 EStG → § 34 Abs. 1), with a four-week election to defer payment to 1 January of the following year. The threshold is 1,5 %, not 1 %: § 93 Abs. 3 Satz 2 Nr. 1 EStG defines a Kleinbetragsrente as one that “1,5 Prozent der monatlichen Bezugsgröße nach § 18 des Vierten Buches Sozialgesetzbuch nicht übersteigt”, aggregated across all of the saver’s contracts at that provider (Satz 3). On the 3 955,00 € monthly Bezugsgröße used here that is 59,33 €, and the 39,55 € the model implements is too low |
R15 R21 REG-R42 REG-R46; the Bezugsgröße itself |
Which surplus components count toward satisfying the Beitragsgarantie was not established for any Riester tariff (gap 9), and in particular whether a Schlussüberschussanteil — declared at Rentenbeginn, not a vested balance before it — may close a shortfall. The reference implementation counts all of them, the provider-favourable reading, and says so; the alternative raises the projected guarantee cost and is a named sensitivity in the technical notes.
German consumer commentary reports the 30 % lump sum as the usual choice
[unverified], and gap 10 records that this rests on nothing. It is adopted for the anchor because it exercises the option at its statutory maximum and because the decision is genuinely non-obvious — the lump sum is taxed in full in the year it is paid, with no Fünftelregelung R12 R15. Model point 12 takes none.The construction is now established for a Riester tariff; the level is not. Debeka’s B LV 94 (01.01.2025) § 4 Abs. 3 defines it in the model’s own terms — “Der garantierte Rentenfaktor gibt an, wie viel Rente wir Ihnen monatlich je 10.000 Euro Guthaben … zahlen” — struck on “einen Rechnungszins von 0,1 Prozent p. a. und die unternehmenseigene geschlechtsunabhängige Sterbetafel Debeka 07/16 R (RF)”, compared at Rentenbeginn with the factor implied by the house’s then-current immediate-annuity basis, and “Die höhere Rente wird ausgezahlt (Günstigerprüfung).” [S6] The denomination, the monthly basis and the higher-of rule are exactly what the composite adopted, and the 0,1 % interest basis is the Sicherheitsabschlag made concrete — close to the 0 % a sibling
delibfile reports for a Schicht-3 tariff. Two qualifications. In that wording the factor applies only to the capital from further payments, the fund holding and further surplus; the annuity from the originally agreed contributions and Zulagen is set on the inception basis, so the two-factor construction is a partial mechanic there and the whole conversion here. And neither the GDV model wording nor the CosmosDirekt wording contains a Rentenfaktor at all [S2] [S4]: they agree the annuity at inception and let each Zulage buy an increment on the tariff in force at conclusion. The composite’s construction is therefore one of at least two live German designs, and the level — 29,00 € per 10 000 € per month — is std still. Gap 9 narrows from “not established for any Riester tariff” to “no level established, and the design varies by house”.The DAV tables are the property of the Deutsche Aktuarvereinigung, distributed to members and licensees rather than published, and not redistributable:
delibships none of them and quotes noq(x)from any of them REG-R47 REG-R49. The shipped table is a std proxy anchored so the worked example reproduces exactly. The one non-optional structural property is that the annuity basis is a Generationentafel, two-dimensional in attained age and calendar year, because a period-table proxy understates a deferred annuitisation by a margin that dwarfs every other assumption in the model REG-R49.No Rentengarantiezeit length and no payout-phase surplus system was established at any carrier (gaps 11, 12); ten years is the common German market length
[unverified]. A constant annuity is the base run because the AltZertG constrains which surplus systems are available R1; model point 12 switches the guarantee period off, making its effect testable by difference.This footnote recorded a std choice that a retrieved document has since confirmed. The GDV model wording is titled “Allgemeine Bedingungen für eine Rentenversicherung mit Auszahlung des Deckungskapitals bei Tod als Altersvorsorgevertrag im Sinne des AltZertG” [S2] — the death benefit is in the document’s name — and both retrieved carrier wordings pay the same [S4] [S6]. The reasoning stands and is now corroborated rather than merely defensible: the Beitragsgarantie is tested only at Rentenbeginn R1, and importing it into the death benefit would create a guarantee the statute does not require. The Deckungskapital itself is defined in the wording as the contributions and Zulagen, less tariff costs, accumulated at the Rechnungszins — which is exactly the model’s account, and is also where the Zulagen charge base is settled (15).
The retrieved statute settles the threshold against the composite, and the retrieved model wording settles the ordering against it too. Neither has been applied to the model. The two readings were not irreconcilable, only unchecked: § 93 Abs. 3 Satz 2 Nr. 1 EStG says 1,5 % R15, so the correct threshold on the Bezugsgröße used here is 59,33 € and the model’s
kleinbetrag_threshold_mth = 39.55is a third too low. Raising it would make more contracts commute and shorten the liability, so the composite’s choice was prudent but wrong. Separately, the model applies the test to the annuity payable after an elected Teilkapitalauszahlung; the GDV wording forbids exactly that — “Eine Abfindung erfolgt nicht, wenn die Leistung nur aufgrund einer Teilkapitalauszahlung gemäß Absatz 4 auf eine Kleinbetragsrente sinkt” [S2] § 1 Abs. 3 — so the test belongs on the annuity before the lump sum. Both are model changes: they move the worked example and the golden tests, and they are recorded here and deferred rather than made silently. What is now settled in the composite’s favour is who may commute: it is the provider’s option in both retrieved wordings — “können wir die Rente … abfinden” [S2], “kann die Leistung in Form einer einmaligen Kapitalabfindung erfolgen” [S4]. Gap 7 shrinks from three open points to one.
Underwriting and rating#
Parameter |
Representative value |
Basis |
|---|---|---|
Health evidence |
None for the savings contract — a deferred annuity whose death benefit is the accumulated capital carries no positive sum at risk, so there is nothing to underwrite. A Berufsunfähigkeits-Zusatzversicherung or survivor’s benefit is separately underwritten on the rider’s own basis |
design consequence std; REG-R29; rider inventory not established (gap 11) |
Rating factors |
Entry age and Rentenbeginn only. Sex may not be used R23 REG-R34; smoker status, occupation and health do not enter a savings tariff |
|
Eligibility check |
Performed by the ZfA, not by the insurer: the provider transmits contribution data and the ZfA determines entitlement against the pension insurance’s earnings data. Losing eligibility does nothing to the contract — contributions may continue, unsubsidised, into the second tax pool |
|
Rechnungszins |
Chosen by the carrier at or below the Höchstrechnungszins in force at conclusion: 0,25 % from 1 January 2022, 1,00 % from 1 January 2025. Representative value 0,25 % for the anchor, a 2024-vintage tariff |
R22 REG-R14 REG-R15; carrier’s choice not established (gap 12); representative value std (13) |
The Höchstrechnungszins is a cap on the reserving rate, not the rate a policy guarantees REG-R14; a tariff may guarantee less, and no carrier’s choice was established. The composite uses the cap in force at the tariff’s vintage — the highest defensible value, and so the one making the guarantee cheapest; a lower tariff rate widens the Garantielücke, a direction the technical notes carry explicitly.
Charges#
Charge figures now exist in this corpus, and the statement that none did is withdrawn. Three retrieved documents carry them. CosmosDirekt’s LA 1005 A § 11 is a complete numbered basis: Abschluss- und Vertriebskosten of 1,0 % of the Eigenbeiträge payable over the deferral, spread over at least five contract years; Verwaltungskosten of 2,1 % of each Eigenbeitrag, 2,1 % of capital transferred in and 6,0 % of each Zuzahlung or staatliche Zulage; a fractionation loading of +3,0 / +2,0 / +1,0 percentage points on that 2,1 % for monthly, quarterly and half-yearly payment; 0,13 % of the accumulated Beitragssumme taken monthly pro rata from the Deckungskapital, also on paid-up contracts; and a payout-phase Verwaltungskosten-Rückstellung of 1,5 % of the annual annuity [S4]. Union Investment’s sheets disclose Effektivkosten of 1,45 and 1,33 Prozentpunkte with the full § 2a cost list behind them [S9]. The GDV and Debeka wordings give the forms without the levels [S2] [S6].
Every charge below is nonetheless still std, and the reason has changed: not that nothing is
known, but that one insurer’s tariff is not a market. The observation now available differs from
the composite in both directions and in mechanic as well as level — see (14) and (15). The
[unverified] third-party figures inherited from a sibling session for an Allianz RiesterRente
(0,95 € per 100 € of capital formed) and an Allianz BasisRente specimen (a 1 575 €
Abschlussprovision) [S5] are superseded and are cited for nothing.
Parameter |
Representative value |
Basis |
|---|---|---|
Acquisition and distribution costs |
Must be spread “gleichmäßig mindestens auf die ersten fünf Vertragsjahre, soweit sie nicht als Prozentsatz von den Altersvorsorgebeiträgen abgezogen werden” (AltZertG § 1 Abs. 1 Satz 1 Nr. 8) — and that closing qualifier matters: a percentage-of-contribution charge falls outside the spreading rule, which is exactly how all three retrieved wordings treat the charge on a Zulage. The Höchstzillmersatz is 25 ‰ of the sum of all premiums, DeckRV § 4 Abs. 1: “Der Zillmersatz darf 25 Promille der Summe aller Prämien nicht überschreiten” |
R1 REG-R16 REG-R43; the 1 January 2015 effective date |
Representative acquisition charge |
2,5 % of the Beitragssumme, in five equal instalments in contract years 1 to 5 — against 1,0 % of the Eigenbeiträge at the one carrier now in hand [S4] |
std (14) |
Administration charge |
4,0 % of each contribution credited, plus a fixed policy fee of 12,00 € per year taken from the Sparbeitrag while contributions are paid and from the Deckungskapital while the contract is beitragsfrei — against 2,1 % of each contribution plus 0,13 % of the accumulated Beitragssumme per year at [S4], the second of which is a fund-based charge the composite has no counterpart for |
std (14) |
Charge base for the Zulagen; Risikobeitrag |
The Zulagen are charged. Gap 14 is closed, and the composite’s answer is right in kind and wrong in level — see (15). The Risikobeitrag is zero, the death benefit being the account value, so the sum at risk is nil by construction |
[S2] [S4] [S6] [S9]; level std (15); (16) |
Payout-phase loading |
Carried inside the Rentenfaktor as a margin of 30 % on the actuarially fair factor, not as a separate deduction from each annuity payment. AltZertG § 2a Satz 1 Nr. 1 Buchst. f permits a charge “ab Beginn der Auszahlungsphase als Prozentsatz der gezahlten Leistung”, and one carrier levies exactly that — a Verwaltungskosten-Rückstellung of 1,5 % of the annual annuity [S4] |
std (17) |
Stornoabzug on surrender; transfer charge on an Anbieterwechsel |
2,0 % of the account value; 50,00 €, a fixed euro amount. The transfer-charge ceiling is now established and gap 8 closes: AltZertG § 1 Abs. 1 Satz 3 makes it “unzulässig, dass der Anbieter des bisherigen Altersvorsorgevertrags dem Vertragspartner Kosten in Höhe von mehr als 150 Euro in Rechnung stellt”, so the model’s 50,00 € sits well inside it — and it is exactly what one fund provider charges [S9], while one insurer charges nothing at all [S4] |
§ 169 Abs. 5 VVG permits a deduction only “wenn er vereinbart, beziffert und angemessen ist” REG-R28; R1 for the cap; both levels std (14) |
Disclosed cost measure |
Effektivkosten — “die Minderung der Wertentwicklung des Vertrags bis zum Beginn der Auszahlungsphase durch Kosten in Prozentpunkten”, AltvPIBV § 8 Nr. 3 and not the AltZertG, which never uses the word; computed for the individual offer, on all costs, by a methodology the Produktinformationsstelle Altersvorsorge lays down (§ 10 Abs. 5). Two real values are now in this library: 1,45 and 1,33 Prozentpunkte [S9] |
|
Risk/return class |
Chancen-Risiko-Klasse 1 to 5, “wobei CRK 1 die niedrigste und CRK 5 die höchste … darstellt” (AltvPIBV § 5 Abs. 2), determined separately for terms of 12, 20, 30 and 40 years from a simulation the Zertifizierungsstelle lays down (AltZertG § 3 Abs. 2 Satz 2) and the PIA performs under Beleihung (§ 3a) — a feature with no counterpart in |
Round-number placeholders, and now placeholders with one observation beside them rather than none. The acquisition rate is set at the § 4 DeckRV cap REG-R16, a cap and not a level, on the argument that what binds this product is not the Höchstzillmersatz but the AltZertG’s five-year spreading R1. The one retrieved tariff charges 1,0 % of the Eigenbeiträge — two and a half times lower than the composite, and on a narrower base, since the composite applies its 2,5 % to a Beitragssumme that includes the Zulagen. Its administration charge is 2,1 % against the composite’s 4,0 %, and it takes a 0,13 % of accumulated Beitragssumme fund charge each year in place of the composite’s flat 12,00 €, so the two bases differ in shape and not only in size. Its Stornoabzug is nil, and its transfer charge is nil [S4]; a fund provider’s transfer charge is 50,00 € [S9], the composite’s figure exactly. Debeka’s Stornoabzug, where one is levied, is a market-value adjustment of 0 / 5 / 10 / 15 % of the Deckungskapital keyed to a ten-year swap-rate spread and running off linearly over the last ten years of deferral [S6] — a mechanic the composite’s flat 2,0 % cannot express. None of this has been applied to the model: one house is not a market, and a charge change moves the worked example and the golden tests. It is recorded so a future calibration starts from evidence.
Gap 14 is closed by four independent documents, and the composite’s answer is right in kind and wrong in level. The Zulagen are a charge base. The GDV model wording lists among the permitted forms “eines festen Prozentsatzes jedes gezahlten Beitrags sowie jeder Zulage und Zuzahlung” and “der vereinbarten Beitragssumme einschließlich Zulagen und Zuzahlung”, and adds that acquisition cost on a Zulage is taken once at inflow, not spread: “Von Zulagen und Zuzahlungen ziehen wir die Abschluss- und Vertriebskosten jeweils einmalig zum Zeitpunkt des Zuflusses ab” [S2] § 13 Abs. 2. Debeka drafts the same rule [S6] § 14 Abs. 2. Union Investment discloses acquisition cost as a “Prozentsatz der eingezahlten Beiträge (inkl. Zulagen)” [S9]. And CosmosDirekt puts a number on it: 6,0 % of each Zulage against 2,1 % of each Eigenbeitrag [S4] — the Zulagen charged at nearly three times the rate. The composite charges them at the same rate as the Eigenbeitrag, which the one available observation contradicts. It matters exactly where the entry always said it did: in the low-income cases of the § 86 table the Zulagen are the majority of the contribution. The model is unchanged and this is flagged rather than fixed.
A real product fact, not a simplification: with a death benefit equal to the accumulated capital there is no sum at risk and so no Risikobeitrag REG-R47. A Beitragsrückgewähr floor would create one, which is one reason the composite avoids it.
German market Rentenfaktoren sit materially below the actuarially fair factor implied by any plausible annuitant basis, carrying both the Sicherheitsabschlag of a guarantee given decades ahead and the payout phase’s cost loading — a proposition the 0,1 % interest basis behind Debeka’s guaranteed factor now makes concrete [S6]. Deducting from each annuity payment and applying a conservative factor double-counts, so the composite puts the whole loading in the factor and takes real payout-phase administration as a per-policy expense cash flow. The German market does the other thing: AltZertG § 2a Satz 1 Nr. 1 Buchst. f expressly permits a payout-phase charge “als Prozentsatz der gezahlten Leistung”, CosmosDirekt levies 1,5 % of the annual annuity [S4], and the Muster-PIB has a line for it. The composite’s construction remains internally consistent and is now visibly a presentational standardization rather than a market description.
Termination and values#
Parameter |
Representative value |
Basis |
|---|---|---|
Beitragsfreistellung |
Contributions stop, the contract stays in force and stays certified, no further Zulagen arrive, and no subsidy is repaid. AltZertG § 1 Abs. 1 Satz 1 Nr. 10 Buchst. a gives the right to let the contract lie dormant; § 165 Abs. 1 VVG gives the general contract-law right “jederzeit für den Schluss der laufenden Versicherungsperiode …, sofern die dafür vereinbarte Mindestversicherungsleistung erreicht wird” — below which the insurer pays the surrender value instead. The guarantee survives: “Die Beitragserhaltungsgarantie … gilt auch bei einer Beitragsfreistellung und bezieht sich auf die gezahlten Beiträge und die zugeflossenen staatlichen Zulagen” [S2] § 12 Abs. 5. The wordings implement it by converting to a paid-up annuity computed on the surrender value [S2] [S4]; the model instead freezes the accumulator and lets the account run on |
|
Anbieterwechsel |
A statutory right: terminate and have the accumulated capital transferred directly to another certified contract. Not a schädliche Verwendung, no tax consequence |
|
Notice period and transfer-charge cap |
Both established; gap 8 closes. Three months to the end of a calendar quarter, or to the start of the payout phase (AltZertG § 1 Abs. 1 Satz 1 Nr. 10 Buchst. b), shortened to 14 days where the pre-payout information came late (§ 7b Abs. 2, drafted at [S2] § 11 Abs. 1). The ceding provider may charge no more than 150 Euro (§ 1 Abs. 1 Satz 3), and the receiving provider may take at most 50 % of the transferred subsidised capital into its own acquisition-cost base (Satz 4) |
|
Kündigung with payment of the Rückkaufswert |
Permitted by the VVG and punished by the EStG: the saver receives the surrender value less the Rückzahlungsbetrag — all Zulagen credited and all § 10a relief granted — and the growth on the subsidised part becomes taxable |
|
Rückkaufswert floor |
§ 169 Abs. 3 VVG floors it at “mindestens der Betrag des Deckungskapitals, das sich bei gleichmäßiger Verteilung der angesetzten Abschluss- und Vertriebskosten auf die ersten fünf Vertragsjahre ergibt” — which the AltZertG’s own five-year spreading R1 already produces, so on a certified contract the § 169 floor is satisfied by construction. Both retrieved wordings compute the Rückkaufswert on exactly that basis [S2] § 10 Abs. 3, [S4] § 9 Abs. 2 |
|
Early-duration reality |
The surrender value can be, and in the early years of a charged contract usually is, below the contributions paid. The Beitragsgarantie does not floor it — it is tested once, at Rentenbeginn |
|
Other förderunschädliche exits |
Versorgungsausgleich on divorce, by internal or external division into the other spouse’s certified contract; and an Altersvorsorge-Eigenheimbetrag, which from the insurer’s side is an early and complete exit terminating the annuity liability. Neither is implemented |
|
Non-transferability; emigration |
§ 97 EStG makes the subsidised capital, the subsidised current contributions and the Zulage claim “nicht übertragbar” — and that is all § 97 says. The protection from attachment is a consequence of it through ZPO § 851 Abs. 1, not a provision of its own, and the separate § 851c route is unavailable to a contract that has agreed a lump sum. The contract wording bars assignment and pledging in terms [S4] § 14 Abs. 2. Gap 15 closes on emigration: § 95 applies §§ 93 and 94 correspondingly where the saver’s residence is outside the EU/EEA “ab Beginn der Auszahlungsphase”, so the trigger is the payout phase and not the end of unlimited tax liability. The model implements none of it |
Contractual mechanics#
Eligibility, the Mindesteigenbeitrag and the proportional Kürzung#
Eligibility is annual and is an attribute of the saver. A saver can be unmittelbar eligible in one year, mittelbar in the next and not eligible at all in a third, without the contract changing R7; contributions may continue, they are simply unsubsidised, and they move into the second tax pool R12. The rule that decides the whole subsidy stream is therefore a property of the person, not of the contract, and one the insurer does not itself observe — the ZfA does R11. The reference implementation carries it as a per-period flag on an external schedule, std default “unmittelbar eligible throughout”, with a dedicated model point exercising a mid-term lapse.
The contribution rule R10 REG-R42, written as the model implements it:
mindesteigenbeitrag(t) = max( 60 € ,
min( 4 % × income(t − 1), 2 100 € ) − zulage_entitlement(t) )
eigenbeitrag(t) = contrib_ratio × mindesteigenbeitrag(t)
zulage_granted(t) = zulage_entitlement(t) × min( 1, contrib_ratio )
Three features of the statute drive behaviour and each is a distinct way to get the model wrong. The base is the previous calendar year’s contribution-liable earnings. The Zulage is subtracted from it, so a larger subsidy reduces the saver’s own payment rather than increasing what the contract receives. And the sanction for under-payment is proportional, not a cliff — an implementation that treats the minimum as all-or-nothing produces a discontinuity that does not exist in the statute, and the German book is full of the paths that discontinuity would misprice R10 REG-R42.
The one-year Zulage lag, and the second lag behind it#
Two distinct lags run in the subsidy chain and they are easy to collapse into one. The
entitlement for contribution year t is computed from income in t − 1 R10; the cash arrives
from the ZfA in t + 1 R11 REG-R42. The reference implementation carries both explicitly:
income_ref(t) = income(t − 1) for the entitlement, zulage_credited(t) = zulage_granted(t − 1)
for the cash. The one-year cash lag is no longer a bare std: §§ 88 to 90 EStG put the credit in the year
after the contribution year at the earliest, and AltvPIBV § 9 Abs. 3 fixes the date at 15 May of
that year for every statutory disclosure calculation R5 R11 — which closes gap 6. What is
standardized is only the compression of a mid-May credit onto the first month of the projection
year.
One consequence is load-bearing and is a numbered pitfall: the Zulage for the final contribution year arrives after contributions have stopped, landing in the conversion year itself, where it must be credited, counted in the guarantee and included in the conversion capital before the guarantee is tested. Stopping the Zulage stream with the contribution stream silently drops a full year’s subsidy out of both.
The § 10a Sonderausgabenabzug and the Günstigerprüfung — and why neither is a cash flow#
“Altersvorsorgebeiträge (§ 82) zuzüglich der dafür nach Abschnitt XI zustehenden Zulage jährlich bis zu 2 100 Euro als Sonderausgaben abziehen” — § 10a Abs. 1 Satz 1 R6 REG-R42. Where one spouse is only mittelbar eligible the ceiling rises by 60 € for the deducting spouse (Abs. 3 Satz 3). The Günstigerprüfung works exactly as the documents said, by the mechanism they did not state: where the deduction is the better outcome, “erhöht sich die unter Berücksichtigung des Sonderausgabenabzugs ermittelte tarifliche Einkommensteuer um den Anspruch auf Zulage” (Abs. 2 Satz 1) — the Zulage is added back to the assessed tax, so the saver keeps the larger of the two and not their sum — “In den anderen Fällen scheidet der Sonderausgabenabzug aus. Die Günstigerprüfung wird von Amts wegen vorgenommen.” The Berufseinsteiger-Bonus is excluded from the comparison (Abs. 1 Satz 5).
Only the Zulage is a contract cash flow. The Günstigerprüfung top-up is a personal tax refund
and never touches the policy REG-R42 — the single most important thing a model author must get
right about the subsidy, and why the model publishes zulagen as a column of the cash flow
statement and nothing at all for the § 10a route. The Zulagen route dominates for low incomes and
households with children, the § 10a route for high incomes with no children; the crossover was not
established and no crossover figure appears anywhere in this library (gap 5). A mittelbar
eligible spouse has no § 10a deduction of their own: § 10a Abs. 3 Satz 2 gives their contributions
and Zulagen to the unmittelbar eligible spouse’s assessment instead R6 R7. The deduction reaches
the projection in one indirect way only: it is part of what is repaid on a schädliche Verwendung
R14, and therefore part of the reason a Riester lapse assumption should sit materially below a
Schicht-3 one.
The 100 % Beitragsgarantie#
What is guaranteed, in the words of the model wording every German classic Riester tariff is
drafted from: “Wir garantieren, dass zum Rentenzahlungsbeginn (Beginn der Auszahlungsphase)
mindestens die bis dahin gezahlten Beiträge und die uns zugeflossenen staatlichen Zulagen für die
vereinbarten Leistungen zur Verfügung stehen” [S2] § 1 Abs. 10, on AltZertG § 1 Abs. 1 Satz 1 Nr. 3
R1 REG-R43, less the biometric carve-out — “höchstens jedoch 20 % der Gesamtbeiträge”. Note where
the authority for each half sits: the 20 % and the once-at-Rentenbeginn test are statutory; that
the Zulagen count is contractual, the statute speaking only of Altersvorsorgebeiträge, which
EStG § 82 defines as what the saver pays R8. Every wording read here says the Zulagen count [S2]
[S4] [S6]; none of them had to.
In model terms it is a running accumulator, not a discounted quantity —
guar(t + 1) = guar(t) + eigenbeitrag(t) + zulage(t) − carve_out(t), frozen once contributions stop
— and at Rentenbeginn the conversion capital is max(account and its surplus components, guar(T)). The excess of guar(T) over the account, the Garantielücke, is a cost the
insurer bears out of its own funds and is the product’s signature output. A Riester model in which
the guarantee never binds on any model point has demonstrated nothing, which is why the model point
table carries a low-declared-rate cell on which it bites.
Six things the guarantee is not, each of them load-bearing. Not a value at any other date — it is tested once, and before Rentenbeginn the surrender value can be, and in the early years usually is, below the contributions paid. Not a floor on surrender: a saver who terminates for cash gets the Rückkaufswert, which the guarantee does not floor, and loses the subsidy R14. Not preserved on transfer — whether the guarantee survives a Wechsel is a design question of the receiving contract and is still not established, the one limb of gap 8 the statute does not answer; if the receiving contract’s guarantee runs only on the transferred sum rather than on the original contributions the Wechselrecht is materially less valuable than it appears, and this library cannot say which is right. Not real: it is nominal, and over thirty years at even moderate inflation the floor is worth a fraction of the contributions in real terms, which is the substance of the most serious criticism of the design. Not a guarantee of the annuity — it is on the capital, and what that capital buys is a separate guarantee, the garantierter Rentenfaktor, with which it is routinely conflated. Not preserved through an Eigenheimbetrag or a Versorgungsausgleich, both of which reduce it pro tanto — a limb the library had not carried and which both retrieved wordings state [S2] [S4]. And not extended to the risk-cover premiums, within the statutory 20 % share R1 REG-R43, which is why a Riester contract can carry a Berufsunfähigkeits-Zusatzversicherung without the guarantee reproducing its premiums, and why raising a rider premium must never enlarge it.
Why the guarantee is the mechanical heart#
The guarantee is a nominal sum, due at a fixed future date, on money paid in over decades, so
its cost is an interest-rate quantity and nothing else: to guarantee one euro payable in n
years an insurer must immobilise (1 + i)^−n of it now, where i is bounded by the
Höchstrechnungszins R22 REG-R14. What is left, 1 − (1 + i)^−n, is the entire budget for
risk assets and for every charge the contract will levy.
Stated on the whole contract: for level contributions in advance over n years the guaranteed
accumulation is C × s̈(n, i), the guarantee is C × n, and the headroom is
s̈(n, i)/n − 1. All rows [std] derived, exact on the R22 rates; the 0,90 %, 1,75 % and
2,25 % values and their effective dates are themselves [unverified] (gap 18):
Term |
0,25 % (2022–24) |
0,90 % |
1,00 % (from 2025) |
1,75 % |
2,25 % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
12 years |
1.64 % |
6.05 % |
6.74 % |
12.14 % |
15.90 % |
20 years |
2.67 % |
10.01 % |
11.20 % |
20.58 % |
27.36 % |
30 years |
3.97 % |
15.24 % |
17.11 % |
32.33 % |
43.82 % |
35 years |
4.63 % |
17.98 % |
20.22 % |
38.76 % |
53.06 % |
On 1 200,00 € a year for thirty years — 36 000,00 € of contributions — the 0,25 % regime produces a
guaranteed accumulation of 37 429,31 €, a headroom of 1 429,31 €; the 1,00 % regime produces
42 159,29 €, a headroom of 6 159,29 € [std] derived. So at 0,25 % a thirty-year contract
had under 4 % of contributions to pay for acquisition, administration, risk and any margin — a
multiple below typical German life charge levels, which made the guarantee not merely expensive but
arithmetically unfinanceable on a normally charged tariff. It bites hardest on short terms and
late money, so the product is structurally hostile to late entrants; it dictates the asset
allocation, since the equity share is bounded above by a headroom that is a function of i and
n alone; and a rate rise repairs it mechanically — the move to 1,00 % on 1 January 2025
roughly quadrupled the thirty-year headroom, from 3,97 % to 17,11 % [std] derived, which is the
arithmetic behind the GDV maintaining a 2025-vintage classic model wording [S2].
One warning about reading the table: it is the arithmetic of the guaranteed accumulation, which is what the insurer must be able to promise. A best-estimate projection credits the declared laufende Verzinsung, materially above the Rechnungszins, so on a healthy contract the Garantielücke closes long before Rentenbeginn. The guarantee’s realised cost is a declared-rate question, not a Rechnungszins question, and a model that confuses the two reports a guarantee cost of zero and concludes the mechanic does not matter.
The five-year cost spreading#
Acquisition and distribution costs must be spread “gleichmäßig mindestens auf die ersten fünf
Vertragsjahre …, soweit sie nicht als Prozentsatz von den Altersvorsorgebeiträgen abgezogen werden”
R1 REG-R43 — a statutory cap on Zillmerung aimed at this product specifically, materially
tighter than anything the VVG imposes on a Schicht-3 contract, and, with the Wechselrecht, a push
toward lower front-end charges and a thinner acquisition margin [unverified] as a market
characterisation. The closing qualifier is load-bearing and the library had not carried it: a
charge expressed as a percentage of the contributions falls outside the spreading obligation, which
is why all three retrieved wordings spread the charge on the Beitragssumme over five years or
sixty months and take the charge on each Zulage once, at inflow [S2] [S4] [S6]. Two model
consequences: the charge basis cannot front-load the whole acquisition cost into year one, which
changes the shape of the early-duration charge run-off and so of the early-duration surrender
value; and the commission cash still leaves at issue while the charge is recovered over five
years, so the new-business strain is carried by the insurer, not by the contract.
Rentenbeginn: conversion, the lump sum and the Rentenfaktor#
At the contractually fixed Rentenbeginn, bounded below by the statutory age R1, four things
happen in order and the order matters. The final Zulage is credited; the conversion capital
is struck as the guarantee floor applied to the account’s own parts; up to 30 % may be taken as
a Teilkapitalauszahlung R1 REG-R43, taxed in full in the year it is paid, with no
Fünftelregelung R12 R15, an asymmetry against the Kleinbetragsrenten-Abfindung that is why
German consumer literature treats the decision as non-obvious; and the remainder is annuitised
into a lifelong, constant-or-rising monthly Leibrente at annuitised_capital / 10 000 € × Rentenfaktor, the higher of the guaranteed and the then-current factor applying. The Riester
Rentenfaktor is unisex from a 2006 vintage R23, earlier than the Schicht-3 market, so it is
not comparable with a same-vintage Schicht-3 factor for a male life — a comparison German market
commentary makes routinely and wrongly.
The Kleinbetragsrente#
Where the monthly annuity would not exceed the statutory threshold — 1,5 % of the monthly
Bezugsgröße of § 18 SGB IV, not the 1 % this library previously chose R15 — the provider may
commute the whole capital to a lump sum, without schädliche Verwendung R15 REG-R42. The
option is the provider’s in both retrieved wordings (“können wir die Rente … abfinden” [S2]), and the
test aggregates all of the saver’s contracts at that provider (§ 93 Abs. 3 Satz 3). The Abfindung
is taxable in full under § 22 Nr. 5 but under the Fünftelregelung, Satz 13 routing § 93 Abs. 3
payments to § 34 Abs. 1 R12 R15; the deferral election is AltZertG § 1 Abs. 1 Satz 1 Nr. 4
Buchst. a, drafted as a four-week window from the provider’s notice with the amount then reserved
“kostenfrei und unverzinst” until 1 January of the following year [S2]. That the Fünftelregelung
arrived in 2018 R21 is [unverified]. This matters far more than the threshold suggests, which is why the model
carries it as a switch on the anchor decrement rather than as a footnote: the book has a long tail
of small contracts, those run at the Sockelbeitrag (§ 86 cases D and E) and those that went
ruhend early. Case D contributes 835,00 € a year, so twenty years is 16 700,00 € of
contributions [std] derived; case E contributes 235,00 €, so twenty years is 4 700,00 € — at
any plausible Rentenfaktor, monthly annuities in the tens of euros. A material fraction of
Riester contracts will never pay an annuity at all. One ordering question the statute does not
settle, and the composite settled it the wrong way: is the test applied to the annuity the whole
conversion capital would buy, or to the annuity payable after an elected Teilkapitalauszahlung? The
composite tests the annuity actually payable. The GDV model wording forbids precisely that —
“Eine Abfindung erfolgt nicht, wenn die Leistung nur aufgrund einer Teilkapitalauszahlung gemäß
Absatz 4 auf eine Kleinbetragsrente sinkt.” [S2] § 1 Abs. 3 — so the test belongs on the annuity
before the lump sum. The model has not been changed: it is a modelled rule, and changing it
moves the worked example and the golden tests. Gap 7 now records a known answer the model does not
yet implement rather than an open question.
Death, the Rückzahlungsbetrag, Anbieterwechsel and Beitragsfreistellung#
Before Rentenbeginn the death benefit is the accumulated capital; the distinctive part is the
subsidy treatment, not the benefit design R14. Transfer to a surviving spouse’s own
certified contract is förderunschädlich; payment to any other heir is schädlich, and the
Rückzahlungsbetrag — all Zulagen and all § 10a relief — is deducted before payment, with the
return on the subsidised part becoming taxable [unverified]. After Rentenbeginn, continuation to
a spouse or payments for the remainder of a Rentengarantiezeit are förderunschädlich; a lump-sum
death benefit outside those forms is not certifiable at all R1. The model publishes the death
benefit gross, because the Rückzahlungsbetrag is a deduction from what the beneficiary receives
and not a change in the insurer’s obligation — the provider withholds and remits it to the ZfA — so
netting it inside the liability stream would confuse a tax collection with a benefit. The same
applies to a surrender. The model publishes the cumulative Zulagen credited as a diagnostic,
which is the ZfA-reclaimable limb; the § 10a limb depends on the saver’s marginal rate and cannot be
computed from contract data at all.
Anbieterwechsel is a statutory portability right with no Schicht-3 analogue: terminate and have the accumulated capital transferred directly to another certified contract, with no schädliche Verwendung and no tax consequence R1 R14 REG-R43. A Riester “lapse” is therefore frequently a transfer out at full value rather than a surrender — for the ceding insurer a full-value exit with no Stornoabzug, and for the model a distinct decrement that must not be collapsed into the lapse rate. The notice period is three months to the end of a calendar quarter or to the start of the payout phase, and the ceding provider may charge no more than 150 Euro — AltZertG § 1 Abs. 1 Satz 1 Nr. 10 Buchst. b and Satz 3, closing gap 8. One retrieved insurer charges nothing for a transfer [S4]; one fund provider charges 50,00 € [S9]. Beitragsfreistellung leaves the contract in force: § 165 VVG gives the right generally REG-R28, and the Riester overlay is that the contract stays certified, the guarantee stands on what was paid, no further Zulagen arrive and no subsidy is repaid R14. It is a state change, not a termination — the guarantee accumulator freezes, the Zulage stream stops, the account keeps rolling and the fixed charges keep biting. Against a surrender value below contributions and a Rückzahlungsbetrag on the way out, that is why the German book shows Beitragsfreistellung where another market would show surrender R16.
The two contribution pools#
A single Riester contract can hold subsidised and unsubsidised contributions at once R12. Geförderte Beiträge — own contributions up to the § 10a ceiling that attracted a Zulage or a deduction, plus the Zulagen — are taxed in full on the way out; ungeförderte Beiträge — anything above the ceiling, or paid in a year of ineligibility — are taxed on the Ertragsanteil for an annuity or under § 20 Abs. 1 Nr. 6 for a lump sum R12 REG-R41 REG-R45. The provider must track the two pools and their investment return separately for the life of the contract and apportion every benefit between them in the Leistungsmitteilung. That statement is now read and is narrower than the library made it: the Leistungsmitteilung is not annual. § 22 Nr. 5 Satz 7 requires it “Bei erstmaligem Bezug von Leistungen, in den Fällen des § 93 Absatz 1 sowie bei Änderung der im Kalenderjahr auszuzahlenden Leistung”, after the end of the calendar year and with the Satz 1 to 3 amounts stated “je gesondert” R12. The separate annual duty is a different one — AltZertG § 7a and, in the wording, [S2] § 17 Abs. 1: contributions and Zulagen and their use, the capital built up, the year’s actual costs and the return earned. Both pools count for the Beitragsgarantie: the guarantee is on what was paid in and no wording read here distinguishes subsidised from unsubsidised money R1 [S2] [S4] [S6] — the natural place for an implementer to go wrong, and a numbered pitfall.
Riders and options#
In scope, modelled or parameterized. The Teilkapitalauszahlung, a single lump-sum election capped at 30 % R1; the Kleinbetragsrenten-Abfindung, a switch on the anchor decrement whose trigger the model computes rather than assumes R15; the Rentengarantiezeit, which changes the payment obligation but not the annuity amount and is the förderunschädliche route for an early death in payment R1 R14; the Anbieterwechsel, a full-value exit decrement distinct from surrender R1; Beitragsfreistellung, a per-model-point switch on the year contributions stop; unsubsidised over-ceiling contributions; and a biometric rider premium, carried only for its effect on the guarantee — the carve-out capped at 20 % of total contributions REG-R43.
Out of scope, and why. The Berufsunfähigkeits-Zusatzversicherung itself: its liability is
products/berufsunfaehigkeit/’s and its premium is not a cash flow of this model, which carries
only the statutory carve-out that premium creates. The survivor’s annuity rider, which needs a
second life and has its own GDV condition set [S3]. The Auszahlungsplan mit Restverrentung,
the fund and bank chassis’s payout topology [S9]–[S12] — worth naming because it is why a Riester
fund savings plan still ends in an insurance annuity: the insurance industry receives the
Restverrentung capital of the fund industry’s contracts. Wohn-Riester in both limbs R13
R19 [S13], the Wohnförderkonto being a notional tax memorandum carrying no cash whatsoever
and the certified Darlehen a banking liability; what the model could have represented and
deliberately does not is the Eigenheimbetrag withdrawal, an early and complete exit at full
value. And surplus in payment, because the constant-or-rising requirement constrains which
systems are available R1 and no declaration level was established.
Variations across insurers#
No carrier-specific parameter was established for any Riester product, at any house, for any
year (gap 12) — stated first so that no reader takes a silence for a value. But the carrier table
is empty for a second reason too: this product varies across carriers far less than any other in
delib, because most of what a French temporaire décès leaves to the insurer, German statute
fixes for everyone.
The observed range, parameter by parameter#
Parameter |
Set by |
Observed variation |
|---|---|---|
Zulagen amounts; eligibility; Mindesteigenbeitrag; Sockelbeitrag; the proportional Kürzung; the § 10a ceiling and the Günstigerprüfung |
none — identical for every provider and every chassis |
|
Earliest payout age; lifelong-annuity requirement; 30 % lump-sum cap; five-year cost spreading; Wechselrecht; unisex; the 20 % biometric carve-out; taxation of the benefit; schädliche Verwendung; the Rückzahlungsbetrag |
none |
|
The 100 % Beitragsgarantie |
none in level; the mechanism varies by chassis |
|
Kleinbetragsrente threshold |
none in level — 1,5 % of the monthly Bezugsgröße, § 93 Abs. 3 Satz 2 Nr. 1 EStG. Whether commutation is mandatory, optional or the saver’s right is a contract term, and both retrieved wordings make it the provider’s option [S2] [S4] |
|
Disclosure: PIB, Effektivkosten, CRK |
format none — the insurance and fund sheets carry the same headings and the same § 2a cost list. The disclosed values do vary and two are now established: Effektivkosten 1,45 and 1,33 Prozentpunkte, CRK 4 and CRK 2, at one fund house [S9]. No insurance value was established |
|
Rechnungszins |
the current cap is read — 1 Prozent, DeckRV § 2 Abs. 1 — and fixed for the contract’s whole term at the rate used at conclusion (Abs. 2). The 0,25 % regime of 2022–24 is not in the consolidated text and stays at REG-R15. Two carrier choices are now established: 1,25 % on a 01.15-vintage tariff [S4] and 0,9 % on a 01.01.2025-vintage one [S6] — the latter below the cap of its vintage, which is the direct evidence for the composite’s footnote 13 |
|
Garantierter Rentenfaktor |
carrier |
the construction is established, the level is not. Debeka’s 2025 Riester wording defines a guaranteed factor per 10 000 € of capital on a 0,1 % Rechnungszins and its own unisex table, compared with the current factor, higher of the two paid [S6]. But neither the GDV model wording nor the CosmosDirekt wording has a Rentenfaktor at all — they agree the annuity at inception [S2] [S4]. So the design varies by house, which the library had not suspected, and no level is established at any house (gap 9) |
Charges: acquisition, administration, payout-phase, Effektivkosten; and the charge base for the Zulagen |
carrier |
one complete tariff basis now exists: 1,0 % of the Eigenbeiträge acquisition, 2,1 % of each contribution and 6,0 % of each Zulage administration, 0,13 % of the accumulated Beitragssumme a year, 1,5 % of the annuity in payment, nil Stornoabzug and nil transfer charge [S4]. Two more wordings give the forms without levels [S2] [S6], and a fund house gives disclosed totals [S9]. The charge base for the Zulagen is settled — they are charged (gap 14 closed). Levels remain unestablished as a range: one tariff is not a market |
Überschussbeteiligung declarations and surplus system |
carrier |
not established (gap 12) |
Guarantee mechanism |
carrier and chassis |
the taxonomy is established — general account; statisches and dynamisches Hybridmodell; i-CPPI; rule-based fund reallocation — but no carrier’s design |
Rider inventory (BUZ, survivor’s benefit, Rentengarantiezeit) |
carrier |
not established (gap 11) |
Whether the tariff is open to new business |
carrier, and now statute |
closed to new business from 1 January 2027, the date the amended AltZertG § 5 and EStG § 93 Abs. 3 both point at R26 REG-R44; which houses had already withdrawn, and when, is not established. Two houses were still maintaining Riester wordings into 2025 [S2] [S6] |
The carriers named, and what naming them does and does not assert#
Carrier or provider |
Chassis |
What is established |
|---|---|---|
GDV Musterbedingungen [S1] [S2] [S3] |
both insurance forms |
Both wordings were retrieved and read at “Stand: 21.07.2025” — 25 pp. classic, 27 pp. unit-linked — from the association’s own index, which also lists a third AltZertG set for an immediate annuity and separate Hinterbliebenenrenten-Zusatzversicherung sets [S3]. They supply the guarantee clause, the 20 % carve-out, the death benefit, the charge forms including the Zulagen base, the Wechsel notice period, the Kleinbetragsrente rules and a ten-year Rentengarantiezeit example. Every level is a company-individual blank, which is why the composite’s carrier parameters stay std |
CosmosDirekt [S4] |
classic insurance |
The wording was retrieved, edition LA 1005 A (01.15), with its specimen PIB. LA 1005 A is the conditions document number; the tariff is R1-A. It is a separate document family from the house’s Schicht-3 (LA 904 A) and Basisrente (LA 1100 A) series. It supplies a Garantiesatz of 1,25 % p. a., a complete numbered charge basis, nil Stornoabzug and nil transfer charge, a flexible Altersgrenze of 62–70, and a bar on assignment and pledging |
Debeka [S6] |
classic with fund surplus |
The wording was retrieved, edition B LV 94 (01.01.2025) — a Riester tariff drafted after the Höchstzinssatz rose. It supplies a Rechnungszins of 0,9 % (below the 1,00 % cap of its vintage), the annuitant table UNI 2004 R, the two-Rentenfaktor construction with a higher-of Günstigerprüfung on a 0,1 % basis and the house’s own unisex table, an interest-linked market-value-adjustment Stornoabzug of 0/5/10/15 %, and 60-month acquisition-cost spreading with the charge on each Zulage taken once at inflow. No charge level, those being tariff data outside the AVB |
Allianz [S5]; R+V [S7]; Alte Leipziger [S8] |
classic (and unit-linked at [S5] [S8]) |
Why each is the right place to look: Allianz is the market-leader comparator; R+V is the one group whose Riester offering spans an insurance and a fund chassis in the same distribution network as [S9]; Alte Leipziger is the broker-market comparator. No document was located for any of the three in this pass — no tariff code, vintage, clause or new-business status (gap 12). The Allianz cost figures the library used to lean on are |
Union Investment [S9], DWS [S10], Deka [S11] |
Riester-Fondssparplan |
Three Muster-PIBs were retrieved, two of them with values. Union Investment: Zertifizierungsnummern 006403 and 006407, CRK 4 and 2, Effektivkosten 1,45 and 1,33 Prozentpunkte, a full § 2a cost list and a 50,00 € transfer charge; the guarantee is met by a Depotsteuerungskonzept over a Sicherungs- and a Chancenkomponente, not specifically an equity and a bond fund. DWS: structure only, values blank, but an explicit payout window of the 62nd to the 83rd birthday. Deka: not located. No reallocation rule, fund name or new-business status (gaps 11, 12), and the cash-lock characterisation is in no retrieved document and keeps its |
Sparkassen; Volks- und Raiffeisenbanken [S12] |
Riester-Banksparplan |
The structurally simplest certified product and the one for which the guarantee costs nothing at all, since a deposit balance cannot fall below its deposits — the analytical control case, isolating the guarantee’s cost as return forgone rather than as a capital charge. No product, rate or bonus scale |
Twenty-plus further life offices [S16] |
classic and unit-linked |
Named so a follow-up research pass has a list. No wording was located for any house in that list, and no parameter anywhere in this library may cite [S16] for a level |
Regulatory context#
Two statutes doing different jobs. The AltZertG says what a contract must contain to be
certifiable; the EStG says who gets what subsidy and how the benefit is taxed — a product rule
in the first, a money rule in the second, and confusing them is the commonest error in secondary
writing about this product. § 1 AltZertG fixes the payout age, the Beitragserhaltungszusage, the
payout shape, the 30 % lump-sum cap, the five-year cost spreading, the Wechselrecht with its
150 € charge ceiling and the unisex rule R1 REG-R43; § 2a closes the list of charges a
certified contract may levy at all R2; §§ 3, 3a and 5 make certification an administrative act of
the BZSt on the contract type, with the CRK simulation delegable to the PIA R2 [S15]
REG-R43; § 1 Abs. 1a extends it to a loan R3; §§ 7 to 7c carry the information duties R4;
and the AltvPIBV carries the sheet’s form, its model case, its return scenarios and the
Effektivkosten R5 [S14]. Non-assignability is not in the AltZertG — it is EStG § 97 R16. The subsidy machinery is EStG Abschnitt XI — § 79 (entitlement)
R7, §§ 82–83 (contributions and the Zulage) R8, §§ 84–85 (the amounts) R9, §§ 86–87 (the
Mindesteigenbeitrag) R10, §§ 89–91 (the ZfA) R11, §§ 92a–92b (Wohn-Riester) R13, §§ 93–95
(schädliche Verwendung) R14, § 97 (non-transferability) R16 — with § 10a carrying the
deduction R6 and § 22 Nr. 5 the taxation of the benefit R12, all consolidated for practitioners
in the BMF Anwendungsschreiben R24, whose date, reference number and content are still not
established (gap 3). Gap 4 is closed. Every paragraph number in that list, and every one in
this document, was checked against the canonical statutory XML on 2026-08-30 and is cited with the
instrument’s Stand; the [unverified] tags that stood on them are gone, and where a number turned
out to be wrong — the 60th-year rule is § 14 Abs. 2 and not § 1, the Pfändungsschutz is ZPO § 851
and not EStG § 97, the Effektivkosten are AltvPIBV § 8 and not the AltZertG — the citation was
corrected rather than dropped.
The statutes that shaped the product. The Altersvermögensgesetz and Altersvermögensergänzungsgesetz of 2001 created it for contribution years from 2002, in the same breath as they reduced the future replacement rate of the statutory pension — the pairing is the whole political logic of the product R17. The Alterseinkünftegesetz of 2004 created the three-layer taxonomy R18 REG-R38; the Eigenheimrentengesetz of 2008 created Wohn-Riester and raised the Kinderzulage for children born from 2008 R19; the Altersvorsorge-Verbesserungsgesetz of 2013 introduced the standardised PIB, capped the Wechsel charge and closed the zero-contribution entitlement of a mittelbar eligible spouse R20; and the Betriebsrentenstärkungsgesetz of 2017 raised the Grundzulage to 175 €, brought the Kleinbetragsrenten-Abfindung under the Fünftelregelung, introduced a Freibetrag in the Grundsicherung im Alter and removed the double Krankenversicherung charge on a bAV-sourced Riester annuity R21. Every one was a repair to a criticism rather than an extension, and none changed the Beitragsgarantie — what the 2023 Fokusgruppe said had to change R26, and what the 2026 reform did by replacing the product REG-R44.
Prudential, reserving and tax are cited, never specified. The Höchstzinssatz of § 2 DeckRV —
“auf 1 Prozent festgesetzt”, and fixed for the whole term at the rate used when the contract was
concluded — binds the rate at which the Deckungsrückstellung is computed and nothing else R22
REG-R14 REG-R15; § 4 Abs. 1 DeckRV caps Zillmerung at “25 Promille der Summe aller
Prämien” REG-R16; § 5 Abs. 3 DeckRV
drives the Zinszusatzreserve REG-R17; the MindZV floors the transfer to the Rückstellung für
Beitragsrückerstattung REG-R18 REG-R19; § 153 VVG gives the individual entitlement to the
Überschussbeteiligung and the hälftige participation in the Bewertungsreserven REG-R24; and
above them sit the Deckungsrückstellung REG-R54 and Solvabilität II as transposed by the VAG
REG-R5 REG-R6. On the tax side the benefit is sonstige Einkünfte taxed in full under § 22
Nr. 5 to the extent it derives from subsidised contributions R12, with a
Werbungskosten-Pauschbetrag of 102 € [unverified]; a private Riester annuity is not a
Versorgungsbezug and attracts no health or long-term-care contribution for a compulsorily insured
pensioner, while a freiwillig versichertes member is assessed on their whole economic capacity,
private annuities expressly included REG-R46. None of it is computed here: this library
publishes gross, undiscounted, best-estimate-style liability cash flows and stops short of the
discounting, so every discount rate, asset return and declared rate in these documents is std.
Conduct, disclosure and the reform track. The individual Produktinformationsblatt with its
individually computed Effektivkosten is a stronger duty than the product-level VVG-InfoV figure
R4 R5 [S14] REG-R31 REG-R43; alongside sit the IDD as transposed REG-R33, PRIIPs for the
unit-linked chassis REG-R32, BaFin’s Wohlverhaltensaufsicht and its expectation of angemessener
Kundennutzen REG-R35, and the BGH line of authority — including its 2025 judgment striking down
asymmetric unilateral reduction of a Rentenfaktor REG-R36, which bears directly on the
two-factor conversion adopted above. The Fokusgruppe private Altersvorsorge reported in 2023
recommending that the 100 % Beitragsgarantie be relaxed or removed, a securities-account product
admitted, the Zulage simplified into a proportional match and eligibility widened R26
[unverified] on every element, neither the report nor the 2024 draft bill having been retrieved.
The enacted reform, however, is now readable in the statutes it amended: an act of 26 May
2026, BGBl. I 2026 Nr. 156, rewrote AltZertG §§ 1 and 5 and VVG provisions with effect from
1 January 2027, and the amended § 5 certifies against § 1 paragraphs 1b, 1c and 1d that the
consolidated text does not yet carry R26. So this specification does describe a legacy product,
and the promulgation date and BGBl citation it previously said could not be asserted can now be —
but the act’s title was not read and may not be given, and nothing may be asserted about the
content of the new contract forms.