Description: The Actuary Vol. 22, No. 1. This article discusses the impact of a change in procedure in the financing of the US Military Retirement System. The change requires amortizing the past service liability. The impact will depend upon whether the amortization is achieved by increasing current taxes and decreasing the current deficit, or by merely increasing the national debt and leaving the current deficit unchanged. The author asserts that the new financing method will not weaken the financial condition of the military retirement system, and that it has the potential to strengthen its financial condition if the funding of the past service liability is handled appropriately.

Description: A discussion of the various Pension Plan Asset Valuation Methods. FromThe Pension Forum, August 2001, Volume 13, Issue No. 1.

Description: Capital Market Assumptions—The Past Performance Future Returns Debate by Jane Arnold and Jennifer Donnelly from Pension Section News, November 1998, Issue No. 38.

Description: This article describes a simplified problem in pension plan financing and presents two questions about how it can be modeled. Answers to these questions will be discussed and their implications for traditional actuarial models will be presented in Part 2 of the article in the following issue of the newsletter.

Description: Part 2 of an article which presents simplified problem and and presented alternate models. Answers are presented in this article. The author's final question is: If traditional actuarial models stumble over these issues, can we get it right for real world funding pension plans and funding practices?

Description: In the U.S. in the late 1980’s, the Internal Revenue Service was taking steps to try to institute explicit boundaries for the actuarial assumptions being used in 'funding' valuations to determine the appropriate contribution levels for small pension plans. This article was written in the context of that environment, to defend the rights of actuaries to their professional judgement. The courts eventually supported this perspective.

Description: Article discussing the Life Actuarial Task Force exposure of potential revisions to AG33.

Description: Overview of a recently published paper that explains how credibility theory can be applied to develop mortality assumptions for defined benefit plans.

Description: This article discusses the cost of vesting under TEFRA's accelerated benefit accrual and vesting rules for top-heavy plans.

Description: ERISA funding requirements for defined benefit pension plans require an asset valuation method which takes reasonable recognition of fair market value. In this article, the author proposes three asset valuation methods in which market values could be averaged to eliminate the detrimental effects of periodic fluctuations in the bond and stock markets.