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Friday, March 29, 2024

Total funeral benefits SSS issued in 2020 drops 27%

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THE Social Security System (SSS) said it has disbursed P3.07-billion worth of funeral benefits in 2020—about 14.25-percent lower than the P3.58 billion released in 2016—to over 135,600 beneficiaries.

Over the years, SSS recorded the release of P3.79 billion to 170,358 members in 2017, P3.91 billion to 175,024 members in 2018 and P4.23 billion in 2019 to 186,730 members.

SSS President and Chief Executive Officer Aurora C. Ignacio said the 27-percent drop in funeral benefit disbursements was due to the nationwide implementation of community quarantine since March 2020. These measures, according to Ignacio, prohibited movements of transacting members to various government offices, including SSS.

“Since Covid-19 has been a global health pandemic, precautionary measures are strictly being implemented in our branches such as wearing of face masks, face shields, accomplishing health declaration slip, and maintaining social distancing,” Ignacio was quoted in the statement as saying. “However, we have implemented new policies such as the number coding scheme and submission of benefit applications through the drop box system. In compliance with Civil Service Commission (CSC) guidelines, only 50 percent to 70 percent of our workforce has been deployed in our offices while some are on alternative work arrangements (AWA) to protect our employees and transacting clients from the virus. Also, the majority of our members have postponed their personal visits to our branches for fear of being exposed to Covid-19, while some still wait for the availability of their supporting documents too, hence the decline of disbursements.”

The funeral benefit is a cash grant given to anyone who paid for the burial expenses of the deceased member, amounting to a minimum of P20,000 to a maximum of P40,000 depending on the contributions paid effective August 2015, the SSS said.

“We would like to remind our member-claimants that they may now submit their funeral benefit claim application online,” Ignacio said. She added it is also important that member-claimants have a unified multi-purpose ID (UMID) or an SSS digitized ID and an enrolled disbursement account under the disbursement account enrollment module (DAEM) for checkless payment of cash benefits.

If with UMID card enrolled as ATM, the funeral benefit payment shall be credited to the latter by default, the SSS statement said. If none, member-claimants may choose their preferred disbursement account from payment channels like PESONet participating banks and e-wallets, among others.

If they have UMID cards enrolled as ATM, the funeral benefit payment shall be credited to the latter by default. However, they can access the complete step-by-step procedures for the DAEM through a web link.

To submit applications online, member-claimants should log in to their SSS web accounts, proceed to the E-Services Tab and select “Submit Funeral Claim Application” to encode all the required information. They should click “Proceed” for SSS validation of provided information and confirmation of eligibility to funeral benefit. The civil status of the deceased member, relationship with the deceased member, and disbursement account enrolled in DAEM should also be provided.

In addition, the following supporting documents must also be uploaded: proof to establish membership of deceased member; death certificate duly registered with the local civil registry or issued by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA); and proof of payment of funeral expenses, including official receipts from memorial park or funeral parlor. Only images and PDF copies with a maximum size of 2 megabytes may be uploaded per document.

One must read the “Certification” carefully and click confirm before submission. Applicants will receive an e-mail notification upon successful submission of the claim.

Meanwhile, non-SSS members and SSS members without UMID or SSS Digitized ID must submit their duly accomplished applications, together with the above-mentioned supporting documents, plus a photocopy of the claimant’s two valid IDs to the nearest SSS branch via the Dropbox system.

Read full article on BusinessMirror

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