Geunro Bokji Gong "Employment and Industrial Accident Insurance Premium 'Mobile Refund Application Service' Launched"

Korea Workers' Compensation and Welfare Service

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Bo-kyung] It will become possible to easily apply for refunds of overpaid employment and industrial accident insurance premiums via smartphone.

The Korea Workers' Compensation and Welfare Service will fully implement the 'Mobile Non-face-to-face Refund Application Service' from the 26th, which processes the delivery of overpayment notices for employment and industrial accident insurance premiums and refund applications via mobile, utilizing the public notification text message service.

The public notification text message service refers to a service where KT, an authorized electronic document intermediary, sends postal notifications from public institutions to citizens via text messages using subscriber information from the three major mobile carriers.

Until now, the Service has taken measures such as sending monthly notices to return overpayments and operating a joint refund return intensive management period with the four major social insurance institutions.

However, due to business closures, relocation of business sites, and other reasons, refunds that are not claimed because notices are not received or the application process is cumbersome amount to 26 billion KRW annually, with small refunds under 10,000 KRW increasing every year.

The overpayment notification and refund application service via mobile is the first to be implemented by a public institution and is expected to enhance convenience for business owners and administrative efficiency.

Going forward, overpayment notices and refund application guides will be sent using the mobile phone numbers registered under the business owner's name, enabling simple refund applications via smartphone without submitting separate written applications.

Inconveniences caused by undelivered postal notices due to unknown addresses or recipient absence will be resolved, and the number of unclaimed small refunds is expected to decrease significantly.

The Service expects to reduce the time required for refund payments by more than seven days compared to the existing postal notice method.

Kang Soon-hee, Director of the Korea Workers' Compensation and Welfare Service, said, "We will actively guide and promptly return unclaimed refunds that have not been collected for a long time to provide practical help to businesses going through difficult times due to COVID-19."

She added, "We will continue to discover customer convenience systems in the COVID-19 era, such as the mobile refund application service, and strive to provide more customer-centered labor welfare services."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.