The identities of 13,449 people who did not pay this year's four major social insurance premiums and are delinquent in large amounts or on a habitual basis were disclosed. The list includes well-known entertainers such as actor Shin Eun-kyung and broadcaster Lee Jin-ho.
The National Health Insurance Service on the 30th disclosed all at once, via its website and the electronic official gazette, the personal information of delinquents who have long failed to pay large insurance premiums: 10,444 for health insurance, 2,424 for the national pension, and 581 for employment and industrial accident insurance.
Those disclosed are delinquents who, as of Dec. 31 last year, were at least one year past the payment deadline and owed at least 10 million won in health insurance, 20 million won in the national pension, or 50 million won in employment and industrial accident insurance.
The disclosure list also revealed delinquencies by well-known entertainers. Actor Shin Eun-kyung has failed to pay 95.17 million won in health insurance premiums from February 2014 to the present. Broadcaster Lee Jin-ho, who recently halted activities over alleged illegal gambling, has also been delinquent on 28.84 million won in health insurance premiums since April 2023, and singer Cho Deok-bae has not paid more than 32.39 million won since 2010.
The highest amount among individual delinquents is a person surnamed Seo, who works in manufacturing, who has been delinquent on 1.33078 billion won in health insurance premiums since 2017. Among corporations, a company in Gangnam District, Seoul, recorded the largest delinquency by failing to pay 12.01615 billion won in employment and industrial accident insurance premiums. The total number of people disclosed this year fell 1.7% from a year earlier, and the total delinquency also decreased 35.4% to 364.1 billion won.
The health insurance service selected 29,660 people slated for disclosure in March and gave them more than six months to explain. Afterward, through a second review committee on Dec., it finalized the list by excluding those who actually paid or had no assets.
An agency official said, "If a delinquent voluntarily pays overdue premiums and the amount falls below the disclosure threshold, we immediately delete the name from the list and continue to manage the list," and added, "By disclosing personal information, we will encourage voluntary payment of overdue premiums and prevent moral hazard."