Com­pany num­ber Employer’s Liab­il­ity Insur­ance Asso­ci­ation

The stat­utory acci­dent insur­ance

Stat­utory acci­dent insur­ance in Ger­many is an import­ant part of the social secur­ity sys­tem and serves to pro­tect employ­ees in the event of acci­dents at work and occu­pa­tional ill­nesses. The employ­ers’ liab­il­ity insur­ance asso­ci­ations play a cent­ral role in this. Here is an over­view of stat­utory acci­dent insur­ance, the employ­ers’ liab­il­ity insur­ance asso­ci­ations and their respons­ib­il­it­ies:

Stat­utory acci­dent insur­ance is a com­puls­ory insur­ance scheme for employ­ees in Ger­many that is fin­anced by employer con­tri­bu­tions. Its main tasks are

1. acci­dent pre­ven­tion: Meas­ures to pre­vent acci­dents at work and occu­pa­tional dis­eases.
2. bene­fits for acci­dents at work and occu­pa­tional ill­nessesThis includes the assump­tion of costs for med­ical treat­ment, rehab­il­it­a­tion and, in the worst case, pen­sion bene­fits.
3. voca­tional and social rehab­il­it­a­tionSup­port with rein­teg­ra­tion into the labour mar­ket after an acci­dent or ill­ness.

Role of the employ­ers’ liab­il­ity insur­ance asso­ci­ations

Beruf­s­gen­os­senschaften (BGs) are the organ­isa­tions respons­ible for stat­utory acci­dent insur­ance in Ger­many. They are respons­ible for insur­ing acci­dents at work, com­mut­ing acci­dents and occu­pa­tional ill­nesses and provid­ing cor­res­pond­ing bene­fits to affected employ­ees. Com­pan­ies in almost every sec­tor are obliged to register with the rel­ev­ant employ­ers’ liab­il­ity insur­ance asso­ci­ation as soon as they are estab­lished.

Main tasks of the employ­ers’ liab­il­ity insur­ance asso­ci­ation

1. Acci­dent insur­anceEmploy­ers’ liab­il­ity insur­ance asso­ci­ations ensure that employ­ees are covered in the event of an acci­dent at work or occu­pa­tional ill­ness. They cover the costs of med­ical treat­ment, rehab­il­it­a­tion and, if neces­sary, pen­sion pay­ments.
2. Pre­ven­tionBGs are act­ively involved in the pre­ven­tion of acci­dents at work and occu­pa­tional ill­nesses. They offer train­ing, coun­selling and inform­a­tion mater­i­als for com­pan­ies to pro­mote safe work­ing con­di­tions.
3. Rehab­il­it­a­tionWhen an employee is injured as a res­ult of an acci­dent at work or an occu­pa­tional dis­ease, the employ­ers’ liab­il­ity insur­ance asso­ci­ations take care of med­ical and occu­pa­tional rehab­il­it­a­tion. The aim is to rein­teg­rate the affected per­son into work­ing life as quickly as pos­sible.
4. Com­pens­a­tionIf an acci­dent or ill­ness leads to per­man­ent dis­ab­il­ity or death, the employ­ers’ liab­il­ity insur­ance asso­ci­ations provide fin­an­cial com­pens­a­tion to those affected or their rel­at­ives.

Respons­ible employ­ers’ liab­il­ity insur­ance asso­ci­ations

Which employ­ers’ liab­il­ity insur­ance asso­ci­ation (BG) is respons­ible for you depends on your industry or field of activ­ity. There are vari­ous employ­ers’ liab­il­ity insur­ance asso­ci­ations in Ger­many, each cov­er­ing spe­cific sec­tors of the eco­nomy.

If you are not sure which acci­dent insur­ance insti­tu­tion is respons­ible for you, you can simply call the free infoline of the Ger­man Social Acci­dent Insur­ance at 0800 60 50 40 4 inform. You will receive the neces­sary inform­a­tion there and will be con­nec­ted dir­ectly if neces­sary.

Here is a table with the con­tact details of the vari­ous Employer’s liab­il­ity insur­ance asso­ci­ations:

Employer’s liab­il­ity insur­ance asso­ci­ation costs

The indus­trial employ­ers’ liab­il­ity insur­ance asso­ci­ations are fin­anced by the con­tri­bu­tions of their mem­ber com­pan­ies. In con­trast to other social insur­ance schemes, the amount of con­tri­bu­tions is only cal­cu­lated after the end of a fin­an­cial year.

The basis for cal­cu­lat­ing the con­tri­bu­tions is the fin­an­cial require­ment, the remu­ner­a­tion of the insured per­sons and the risk classes.

1. Fin­an­cial require­mentsAlso known as the con­tri­bu­tion tar­get, this refers to the expenses of the employ­ers’ liab­il­ity insur­ance asso­ci­ation in the last fin­an­cial year.
2. Remu­ner­a­tion for labourThe gross remu­ner­a­tion paid by mem­ber com­pan­ies to their employ­ees. Fur­ther inform­a­tion can be found in the pay cata­logue (PDF, 660 kB, bar­rier-free).
3. Haz­ard tar­iffDeterm­ines the haz­ard classes for vari­ous branches of industry, which are cal­cu­lated from the ratio of bene­fits paid to wages.
4. Con­tri­bu­tion baseIs cal­cu­lated by divid­ing the levy tar­get by the con­tri­bu­tion units (salar­ies and risk classes) in order to enable the salar­ies to be weighted with the insur­ance risk.

Con­tri­bu­tion cal­cu­la­tion:

Con­tri­bu­tion = (remu­ner­a­tion x con­tri­bu­tion rate x risk class) / 1,000

As the con­tri­bu­tions may vary, you can find more inform­a­tion on the off­iz­i­el­len Seite der Deutschen Geset­z­lichen Unfallver­sicher­ung nachlesen.

Time of regis­tra­tion

As an entre­pren­eur, you must register within one week of set­ting up your com­pany. This also applies to com­pan­ies not based in Ger­many that employ staff in Ger­many. You can find fur­ther inform­a­tion for com­pan­ies based abroad here.

Please note: Since 01.01.2024 to apply for a com­pany num­ber, you need the com­pany num­ber of the com­pany to which the new employ­ing com­pany belongs. This num­ber is issued by the rel­ev­ant acci­dent insur­ance insti­tu­tion. If you have any ques­tions about assign­ing or using the com­pany num­ber, you can fol­low the link: Com­pany num­ber.

Defin­i­tion and pur­pose of com­pany num­ber

Mit der Ein­führung der Unternehmens­num­mer am 01. Januar 2023 hat die geset­z­liche Unfallver­sicher­ung ein ein­heit­liches Sys­tem für die Mit­glied­sun­terneh­men der Beruf­s­gen­os­senschaften und Unfallkassen geschaf­fen.

The com­pany num­ber (UNR.S) has 15 digits and links the data of the entre­pren­eurs with their com­pan­ies.

The first 12 char­ac­ters are the entre­pren­eur num­ber (@=check digit), the last three digits refer to the com­pany. If an entre­pren­eur runs sev­eral com­pan­ies, the num­ber­ing is in ascend­ing order (001, 002, 003 etc.). Spaces facil­it­ate read­ab­il­ity.

Receipt of the com­pany num­ber

You will receive the com­pany num­ber as soon as an acci­dent insur­ance insti­tu­tion becomes aware of it.

Please note: It may take a few weeks before you receive your com­pany num­ber. Please note that the com­pany num­ber is not issued auto­mat­ic­ally and the internal check takes a few days. You will receive the com­pany num­ber and the admis­sion doc­u­ments by post to the com­pany address. You should there­fore allow about a week for dis­patch.

Since the begin­ning of 2024, the com­pany num­ber has also been Apply­ing for a com­pany num­ber from the Fed­eral Employ­ment Agency (BA). One excep­tion: If you employ a private domestic help exclus­ively as a mini-job­ber (house­hold cheque pro­ced­ure), you will receive the com­pany num­ber from the Min­i­job centre.

We recom­mend regis­ter­ing with the rel­ev­ant employ­ers’ liab­il­ity insur­ance asso­ci­ation as soon as you set up your com­pany. This way, you will receive your com­pany num­ber in good time and can register your­self and your employ­ees with the Register with the Fed­eral Employ­ment Agency. Timely regis­tra­tion is import­ant, as it also involves the pay­ment of wages and income tax. Delays can lead to fines from the tax office.

Regis­tra­tion with the employ­ers’ liab­il­ity insur­ance asso­ci­ation

Here we explain how you can eas­ily register online and obtain your com­pany num­ber using the VBG Beruf­s­gen­os­senschaft as an example. Please note that dif­fer­ent employ­ers’ liab­il­ity insur­ance asso­ci­ations may have dif­fer­ent regis­tra­tion forms.

1. identify the respons­ible pro­fes­sional asso­ci­ation: The com­pet­ent pro­fes­sional asso­ci­ation depends on your industry or field of activ­ity. You can find more inform­a­tion on the web­site of the Ger­man Social Acci­dent Insur­ance (DGUV)

2. regis­tra­tion on the web­site of your pro­fes­sional asso­ci­ation



3. step 1: Fill in the gen­eral data, includ­ing the date your com­pany was foun­ded and whether you already have employ­ees.



This must be com­mu­nic­ated in the case of per­sons who are required to register and who are doing vol­un­tary work, learn­ing, have a Euro job or are tak­ing part in labour mar­ket policy meas­ures.



5. step 2: Select the com­pany pur­pose from the list and be as pre­cise as pos­sible. You can add up to seven entries.



6. step 3: In this step you have to fill in the com­pany data, includ­ing the Legal formthe com­pet­ent local court, the com­mer­cial register num­ber (HR num­ber) and an extract from the com­mer­cial register.





7. Step 4: Enter the inform­a­tion on the legal rep­res­ent­at­ive and the applic­ant here. They do not neces­sar­ily have to be the same per­son.





8. Step 5: In this step you enter addi­tional inform­a­tion, such as whether the com­pany has other branches, whether it is a takeover, whether the pub­lic sec­tor has a stake of more than 50 % and whether the com­pany is a non-profit organ­isa­tion.





9. sub­mit the form: This com­pletes the regis­tra­tion pro­cess. The con­tri­bu­tion will only be cal­cu­lated after the annual fin­an­cial state­ments have been final­ised and the com­pany data is avail­able.

We recom­mend down­load­ing and keep­ing the PDF for secur­ity reas­ons.



10. Wait­ing for con­firm­a­tion: After pro­cessing, you will receive con­firm­a­tion of your regis­tra­tion and a com­pany num­ber if this has not yet been issued. As already explained, it may take a few weeks before you receive your com­pany num­ber. You can then apply for your com­pany num­ber at the Fed­eral Employ­ment Agency.

Ber­lin office
Bleib­treustrasse 38/39
10623 Ber­lin

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