Short Answer The Federal Employment Agency covers your missing net salaries for the final three months of your employment relationship before the official insolvency event — even if you already resigned before that date. What permanently kills the claim is not leaving the company; it is missing the strict two-month application deadline that starts running the day the insolvency is officially declared. What Most Expats Don't Realize You stopped receiving salary, resigned to find a new job, and wrote off the missing months after a colleague confidently told you that quitting before the court declaration voids the insolvency fund claim. You believed him, never filed anything, and discovered the truth a year later: your resignation had changed nothing, but the two-month application window had silently opened and closed. You lost three full months of back-pay totaling €9,000 to a deadline nobody told you existed — not to the resignation everyone warned you about. What To Do * Apply for insolvency benefit (Insolvenzgeld) at the Federal Employment Agency within two months of the official insolvency event — this deadline, not your employment status, decides everything. * Separately, register your outstanding claims with the appointed insolvency administrator (Insolvenzverwalter) the morning the restructuring is made public. * "Ich beantrage Insolvenzgeld für meine ausstehenden Gehälter der letzten drei Monate." (I apply for insolvency benefit for my outstanding salaries of the last three months.) — say this at the Agentur für Arbeit; bring bank statements and every payroll-delay notice you received.