Historical Overview
Hrvatski zavod za mirovinsko osiguranje (The Croatian Pension Insurance Institute) started its activities as the Central Office for Workers' Insurance. It was founded and established by the Workers' Insurance Act on 14 May 1922. Until today, the pension insurance institutions have changed their names and internal organization, but always with the same purpose - to carry out workers' insurance and take care of insured persons and beneficiaries. To this end, the building of the Central Office for Workers' Insurance in Mihanovićeva Street in Zagreb was built. The building is a work of one of the greatest Croatian architects of the Art Nouveau, Rudolf Lubynski and it is the Central Office of the Croatian Pension Insurance Institute today.During World War II the number of insured persons decreased and the first pension entitlements were acquired under the Workers' Insurance Act. Thus, the mandatory pension insurance established by the 1922 Workers' Insurance Act gained its full meaning and purpose.
After World War II, all existing competent social security institutions merged, regardless of the branch of insurance and the coverage of persons they provided. Instead of the Central Office for Workers' Insurance, the Central Institute for Social Insurance was established with its headquarters in Zagreb. Such an organization operated until 1971 when the pension insurance was separated from health insurance. At that point, the insurance against accidents at work and occupational diseases fell partly within the competence of the health insurance and partly pension insurance.
From 1972 to 1990, the pension insurance was carried out in a self-managed community of interest established for the whole of Croatia. It was established on another law by which the then Croatia regulated its source pension insurance under the then constitutional amendments. It is also worth mentioning that 1970s and 1980s meant a more intensive and advanced implementation of international social security agreements that largely covered and protected our workers abroad.
With the independence of Croatia, the Croatian pension insurance changes its organisation and engages in the new tasks and challenges. The period after 1990 was the period of significant dynamics of events in the pension insurance and the whole country. First, it was necessary to provide a normative basis for the functioning and implementation of insurance in the newly created state, by a succession of legislation and international regulations of the former federal state. Furthermore, the war left its traces on the implementation of pension insurance, which was disabled in the then occupied territories, and on the need to regulate the status of persons affected by the war. At the same time, the pension reform commenced in those years. Its first phase started in 1998 with the adoption of the Pension Insurance Act, which established the current Croatian Pension Insurance Institute.
The process of the complete pension reform began on 1 January 2019, and it covered six laws: Pension Insurance Act, Accelerated Pension Scheme Act, Mandatory Pension Funds Act, Voluntary Pension Funds Act, Pension Insurance Companies Act and the Act on the Pension Supplements earned under the Pension Insurance Act. The Ministry of Labour and Pension System, in cooperation with the Croatian Pension Insurance Institute (HZMO) and Central Register of Affiliates, has carried out a comprehensive pension reform due to the necessity to adjust to the dynamics of the labour market changes, economic situation and demographic trends.
