Disability reform: applications for social security disability in experimental provinces down (-13%)

Whereas the social security disability pension concerns the worker who finds himself in the absolute and permanent impossibility of carrying out any work activity. It is a more selective benefit, linked to a much more serious medical condition and incompatible with continued employment. The amount is calculated on the basis of the applicant's contribution seniority plus a 'contribution bonus' (according to the rules of each individual fund).

The difference is substantial: civil invalidity assesses a person's health condition in his or her daily life context and is not correlated with current or past work activity, while social security invalidity looks at the insured person's residual work capacity and contributions paid. "For this reason, any procedural, health or administrative obstacle that slows down or reduces access to social security benefits is not a mere organisational inconvenience, but affects a right accrued through work," Cigna explains.

The disability reform derives from the enabling act no. 227/2021 and was implemented by legislative decree no. 62/2024 that amended the regulations on the definition and assessment of disability status, introducing the principle of basic assessment and multidimensional assessment. The new model looks at the disabled person not only in terms of health, but also in relation to the barriers that hinder full participation in the contexts of life. The assessment serves to ascertain several conditions: civil invalidity, blindness, deafness, deafblindness, disability in the age of development, targeted placement, prosthetic and healthcare assistance, elements useful for the definition of non-self-sufficiency and very serious disability.

From 1 January 2025, the experimentation of the new system involved nine provinces. Then from 30 September 2025 the experimentation was extended to a further 11 provinces and finally from 1 March 2026, with Decree-Law no. 19/2026, to a further 40 provinces. The duration of the experimentation, initially scheduled for twelve months, was extended to twenty-four months, with the new system becoming fully operational throughout the country on 1 January 2027.

Until 31 December 2026, the previous rules continue to apply in the provinces not affected by the experimentation. In the previous system, the initial medical certificate must be linked to an administrative application, which may also be submitted through a Patronato; in the experimental system, the introductory certificate completed by the doctor also takes on the value of an application; in both cases, in order to obtain benefits of an economic nature, the applicant must in any case submit his socio-economic data.

According to the Inps Civ document, in 2024 applications submitted through Patronati accounted for 85.3% of the total and in 2025 they will be 80%. The decrease is linked to the changes introduced by Legislative Decree no. 62/2024 in the experimental provinces, where Patronati have been excluded from the initial phase of the health assessment request, but are nevertheless recognised by INPS for their role in carrying out the administrative activity required to provide benefits (88.35% of socio-economic data are transmitted through a Patronato - Inps data March 2026).

'The reduction of the role of the Patronati,' explains Cigna, 'may therefore have had a braking effect on social security applications for disability and incapacity, because these benefits require a more complex assessment than the civil disability application alone.

In 2024, there were 841,275 disability/invalidity pension benefits in force, down from 863,241 in 2023. The figure includes employee pension fund, public employees, self-employed, parasubordinate and other schemes. The total IVS disability/invalidity pensions paid will increase from 65,360 in 2023 to 73,042 in 2024. The document thus indicates that, on a general level, pension settlements of these pensions will increase over the two-year period considered, partly due to the fact that the requirement for early retirement has been progressively raised in recent years.

In the nine provinces involved in the first experimentation phase, between 2024 and 2025, a sharp decrease emerges: accepted applications go from 7,786 to 6.846, a decrease of 12.1%; rejected applications go down from 11,255 to 9,444 (-16.1%); defined applications go down from 20,867 to 18,185 (-12.9%); and received applications go down from 20,578 to 17,881, a decrease of 13.1%,

In the provinces not involved in the experimentation, on the other hand, the variations are much smaller: accepted applications decrease by 2.8%, rejected applications by 5.5% and finalised applications by 1.9%, while received applications increase by 1%. The national figure also confirms this trend, showing much smaller reductions than those recorded in the experimental provinces: accepted applications decrease by 3.8%, rejected applications by 6.6%, defined applications by 3% and received applications by 0.5%. The national figure also confirms this trend, showing much smaller reductions than those recorded in the experimental provinces: accepted applications decrease by 3.8%, rejected applications by 6.6%, defined applications by 3% and received applications by 0.5%

"Nof the provinces involved in the experiment," explains the author of the report, "there is not only a decrease in the number of successful applications, but a generalised contraction of the entire administrative flow: the number of applications submitted, the number of cases defined, and the overall outcomes are decreasing. This is a very different trend from that observed in the rest of the country, and one that seems to highlight a concrete impact of the new procedural organisation introduced by the reform, which is producing a 'cooling' effect on access to social security protection'.

Osservatorio Previdenza has also developed a conservative simulation of the effects that the new model could produce once it is extended to the entire territory as of 1 January 2027. Applying to the national level the 13.1% decrease experienced in the experimental provinces, the system could record a potential reduction of about 25,447 applications for social security disability and invalidity per year compared to the current 194,251 applications filed each year.

"We are therefore talking about more than 25 thousand workers in conditions of serious, progressive or invalidating frailty, who, despite being entitled to the ordinary disability allowance or the social security disability pension, would risk not having proper access to protection. This is particularly serious," the CGIL emphasises, "because we are not dealing with generic welfare benefits, but with social security rights based on contributions paid over a working life