VS’is market day in the neighborhood. I take this opportunity to go to the bank to order a new checkbook. Unusual action, because for several years I corresponded with my bank only through the Internet. The person who receives me therefore normally takes my request into account. I write “normally” because this same person, three hours later, calls me on my mobile. Visibly very embarrassed, she said to me: “Sorry to disturb you, I know that you are alive since we saw each other this morning, but your complementary pension funds have just sent us an email asking us to confirm your death, to send in return a death certificate if we have one and to suspend all your payments. “It is written precisely in the email sent to the bank:” We have received information indicating that your beneficiary has died. By the way, with my welcome trip to the bank in the morning, I narrowly avoided having my bank accounts blocked.
So I’m declared dead! My first thought is for my wife. What if, while I was on the move, she had called the bank for information and they had told her that I had died?
I immediately grabbed my phone to contact my supplementary pension funds. Agirc-Arrco first. “This is the national RNIPP file [Répertoire national d’identification des personnes physiques, qui permet de savoir si une personne est vivante ou décédée], I was told, which triggered an automatic computer procedure of suspicion of death concerning you. Its consequences are the sending of three letters, one to your town hall of birth, one to the town hall of your domicile, the other to the bank where your pensions are paid. As you informed us to be still alive, we are rectifying the erroneous information from the computer system. “However, it finally clarified to me, we recommend that you contact the Cnav, social security pension. »
” Birth certificate “
So I phone the next day at the Cnav. After a quarter of an hour of waiting, someone picks up. I give my identity, my address, my social security number, etc. This person then said to me: “If you telephone me, it means that you are not dead! I note, in passing, that there is no lack of humor in the administration. She adds: “The date of your death would date back to November 2021 [il y a sept mois !]. Fortunately, we have not yet suspended your retirement. However, you would need to send a birth certificate to be sure that it is an error concerning you. »
But, as Jacques Chirac said, “the shit, it always flies in squadron”. Informing the Cnav of an appointment with my ophthalmologist two days later, I hear myself answer that my vital card is no longer valid. After having tried in vain to connect to my Ameli account, I phoned Health Insurance and waited again, this time for half an hour.
READ ALSOBut why does everything take so long in France?
The person who answers tells me my last name, first name and social security number. So far so good. But everything gets complicated when she asks me for my address (the one where all correspondence with social security has been sent to me for over thirty years): “I don’t have the same address. Do you have another address? I answer him in the negative. She asks me to wait. Ten minutes later, she said to me: “The civil status declared you dead in November 2021 and your rights have been interrupted since May 10! For a reopening of rights, you must go to your town hall to have a birth certificate. “And to add:” Send this mail by normal letter and especially not by registered mail! “Go figure out why…
I ask him if the rights are also suspended for my wife. She replies no, but that she must have her vital card updated. With such a story, become cautious, I advise her not to do it right away, because she probably had to be declared a widow!
After very long minutes spent on the phone, this is the second time I have been told about “life certificate”, which I didn’t know existed.
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How much time has passed to prove… that I am alive! Especially since no one (neither health insurance nor any pension fund) tried to prevent or contact someone in the family to certify this suspicion of death. In short, the next day, the civil status service of the town hall, although extremely surprised, prints a “certificate of life”. It was also specified to me that fortunately I was not removed from the electoral lists and that, thanks to their request to my town hall of birth, the death was not yet registered on my birth certificate, which would have seemed it even more complicated the sequence of events.
To conclude, I would add that one of my children, having searched the Internet, found that in November 2021, a gentleman with the same first and last name as me, but not having the same age nor I imagine the same social security number, had died… in Puy-de-Dôme! Is this the origin of the misunderstanding? No matter.
Of course, I decided to file a complaint for “compensation for serious damage resulting from a false declaration of death”.