Federal Supreme Court clarifies the principle of "integration before retirement"

Disability insurance (IV) has always followed the principle of "integration before pension". With the WEIV revision, this principle has now also been enshrined in law. However, its practical implementation is very problematic. For a long time, the IV offices followed a questionable pattern: integration measures were granted that regularly failed or were cancelled - often for health reasons or due to psychological decompensation. The matter was then shifted to the pension review - and there experts often certified a high "medical-theoretical" capacity for work. Although this did not match the reality of the failed integration, it served as justification for the IV centres to refuse a pension.

In its ruling 9C_539/2024 of 12 June 2025 (scheduled for publication), the Federal Supreme Court clarified its case law on the principle of integration before a pension on several points:

Duty of experts to discuss integration measures

The court states that medical reports are only of probative value if they explicitly include the results of the integration measures implemented. The experts must address the reasons for discontinuation or failure of the measures and integrate these into their assessment of the ability to work. It must be comprehensible why the measure had to be discontinued or did not lead to success (E. 4.4.).

Medical-theoretical vs. labour market-related fitness for work

The Federal Supreme Court emphasises that a "medical-theoretical" ability to work that cannot (yet) be utilised on the labour market is not sufficient to deny entitlement to a pension. In such cases, the IV centres are obliged to offer further reintegration measures or to adapt existing measures. The priority of reintegration requires a serious attempt at integration before a decision can be made on pension entitlement (E. 4.5.2).

Pension entitlement during lack of integration ability

The Federal Supreme Court states that an entitlement to a pension can also arise if the insured person is not (yet) able to be integrated for medical reasons. A certified ability to work remains irrelevant if it is merely of a medical-theoretical nature and cannot be realised without prior medical-therapeutic measures. During this transitional phase, there is an entitlement to a disability pension. The entitlement only ceases as soon as appropriate treatment has restored the ability to reintegrate to such an extent that occupational integration appears promising (E. 4.5.2).

Preventive function of integration

The Federal Supreme Court emphasises that reintegration measures must also be used preventively in order to prevent imminent invalidity (Art. 8 para. 1 IVG). Impending disability already exists if the subsequent realisation of a medical-theoretical ability to work is at risk if no measures are taken (E. 5.4.3).

Significance for practice

The judgement strengthens the principle of integration before pension by differentiating between medical and actually usable work ability. It obliges assessors and IV offices to seriously include the results of reintegration measures in the clarification of the facts. In practice, this means that

• Administrative reports must include a critical analysis of failed reintegration attempts.
• IV offices have an active duty to continue or repeat reintegration measures if a medically and theoretically certified capacity cannot be realised on the labour market.
• A temporary pension entitlement may arise during medical therapies or in the absence of reintegration ability, which only ends when reintegration ability is restored.
• Reintegration measures are to be used preventively in order to counteract the threat of disability in good time.

The judgement is significant in that in practice it is frequently observed that insured persons often only become entitled to a pension considerably later - often more than a year after registration - due to lengthy procedures and clarifications. Insured persons are often told by the IV in an initial phase that they should register again when they are able to be reintegrated. The financial gap must be borne by the insured person (see the article by Inclusion Handicap dated 30 June 2022 on the ruling 9C_380/2021). In light of the new judgement, the IV offices will in future be required to check during the integration process whether and to what extent a temporary pension entitlement exists if there is (still) no usable integration capability. The reintegration process, which has been neglected in some cases to date, should also be given significantly more weight because a medically and theoretically certified ability to work must be able to withstand real labour market conditions. Integration and pension entitlement are therefore more closely interlinked and cannot be examined in isolation.