Relationen mellan sjukpenning och arbetslöshetsersättning : När enskilda faller mellan stolarna

When a person gets unemployed there is a possibility to apply for unemployment benefit, and if a person gets sick they can apply for using the mandatory sickness insurance. At first sight this can seem beneficial for individuals, but when taking a closer look at the regulations for the two insurances it is possible to see that that is not always the case. The insurances affect each other in such a way that if a person uses one of the insurances the other insurance cannot be used at the same time. Because if a person is sick they are supposed to use the sickness insurance, and if they are unemployed they are supposed to use the unemployment insurance. Although there is a situation where an individual is neither unemployed nor sick regarding to the regulations. That is the case when a person has received sickness benefit for 180 days. In that situation the Social Insurance Agency is supposed to do an assessment of the person´s possibility to work compared to the whole labor market. If in this case, the Social Insurance Agency finds that the person has a possibility to work, the right to the sickness benefit is withdrawn, even if the person has a medical certificate saying the person is still sick. When the person then turns to the unemployment agency, no unemployment benefit will be granted, since the person is sick and therefor has no possibility to work. The result is that the person is not sick enough according to the sickness insurance, but to sick according to the unemployment insurance. Thus, the person has no right to any of the two insurances. The situation mentioned above is the focus for this essay, and the integration between the two regulations will be examined by using different sources of law. In that way it is possible to take different aspects into consideration. The first part of the essay will focus on the regulations and the requirements for receiving benefit. After that the motives to the regulations will be examined, followed by cases illustrating the actual application of the regulations. Analyzes and conclusions will be found in the different chapters of the essay, and they will be put together in a final chapter. The result of the analyze is that the regulations are not applied in a way that is consistent with the motives to the regulations, and the purpose they are supposed to fulfill. Therefor a harmonization of the regulations is needed, so that individuals do not risk being without benefit when they are not able to work and therefor need financial support, which is the purpose with the insurances