Widow denied NII survivors' benefits
NII refuses to pay survivors' benefits to widow, insisting her, her husband's return to Israel not yet complete, despite granting couple Israeli resident status in 2012
The National Insurance Institute annulled the residential status of a former Israeli who was in the process of returning to Israel.
According to the NII, the man has yet to complete the process of returning resident before he died, making his wife illegible to survivors' benefits.
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His widow, 67, told Ynet Sunday that she was very disappointed with the NII decision, as she and her husband had been back in Israel since September 2012. She decided to appeal the decision, noting that three months before her husband's death they were both granted returning residents' status, which was revoked retroactively after her husband's passing.
The couple, with both Israeli and American citizenships, had been living in a kibbutz in the Galilee before they moved to Houston, Texas, where they were residing for eight years.
In March 2012, the two decided to move back to Israel. They arrived in the country in April 2012, bought an apartment in the Sharon and were residing with relatives until the apartment they had bought were to becomes available.
In September 2012, they were granted returning residents certificates from the Immigrant Absorption Ministry. The National Insurance Institute granted them documents according to which they were considered Israeli residents starting September 9, 2012.
The couple returned to the US that same September to sell their apartment and car in Texas, but before they made it back to Israel, the husband's health deteriorated and he passed away the following December – two days before they were scheduled to fly to Israel.
After her husband passed away, the woman applied for NII stipends, including survivors' benefits paid to widows and orphans, but was denied.
The insurance institute notified the widow it had decided to revoke her resident status, granted in September 2012, determining that she and her husband have yet to settle down in Israel before the man's death, and she is therefore not eligible to receive benefits given to permanent residents.
According to the widow's appeal, the institute "altered the deceased's status after he had passed away."
"They treated me as if I were a thief," the widow said.
The National Insurance Institute stated in response that it "acknowledges returning residents when they move their entire lives back to Israel. In this case, bringing life abroad to an end was not completed and we could therefore not recognize the couple's resident status."
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