Labor welfare agency adds QR filing for social insurance sign-ups

The Korea Workers' Compensation and Welfare Service said Sunday it will begin accepting electronic filings of the form employers submit to join South Korea's four major social insurance programs directly from tax and accounting software, an automatic process expected to cover about 70,000 filings a year, starting Oct. 12.

Under the arrangement, a business or tax and accounting office fills out the insurance relations establishment report — the common form used to enroll in the four programs — in its tax or accounting program and transmits it to the agency, whose system reads the filing data in a QR code and registers it automatically.

Previously, a report prepared in that software had to be printed and faxed so agency staff could register it manually and then pass it to the National Health Insurance Service and the National Pension Service through the four-social-insurance information liaison center. Online filing for employment and industrial accident insurance was already available through the agency's total service portal, but the QR route through tax and accounting programs was not supported.

Park Seung-heup, the agency's president, said the procedure was improved jointly with related agencies so that businesses can file more conveniently. "We will continue to reduce the inconvenience experienced in the reporting process and create changes that people can feel," Park said.

The agency developed the system jointly with the National Health Insurance Service, the National Pension Service and the four-social-insurance information liaison center, forming a consultative body in March last year and completing final linkage tests. The Korea Workers' Compensation and Welfare Service will start the service first, with the other agencies expected to adopt it in stages.

The agency introduced automatic intake of civil complaint documents using QR codes in 2019, the first among public institutions, and expanded QR electronic filing in 2022 to ten types of documents including the total remuneration report.