Description: This is a discussion of the paper, Actuarial Note: The Valuation of Self-Insured Retirement Plans by Joseph C. Noback. From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1950, Vol. 2, No. 4.

Description: This article was commissioned by the Society of Actuaries Pension Section Research Team to provide practitioners and researchers with a listing of Web sites containing information about defined benefit plans outside the United States. It also lists some non-Internet information sources. The research team’s primary motivation for the article was its belief that readily available comparative information on the pension environment in other countries, including current design and funding issues, would benefit practitioners and researchers dealing with similar issues.

Description: The Society of Actuaries is pleased to make available a research report that investigates defined benefit retirement plan de-risking activities for U.S.-based companies and the relative impact of various implemented strategies.

Description: Chapter 6 raises employee issues, including why there is any cost associated with DROP, the factors which influence an individual's selection, and how the lump sum money is used. From Design and Actuarial Aspects of Deferred Retirement Option Programs, M-RS03-2.

Description: This session from the 1995 SOA Vancouver Meeting discusses minimum funding and the problems related to establishing and amortizing change-in-method amortization bases. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 21, No. 3a.

Description: This session from the 1995 SOA Vancouver Meeting covers discrimination in plan design specifically addressing 401a4 and 410b regulations. It defines what benfits, right and features are, defines and tests current availabiltiy, defines effective availability and reviews some special rules. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 21, No. 3a.

Description: Presented at October 1996 Annual Meeting. Now that plan sponsors are required to purchase only the “safest available” annuities, companies encounter a number of difficulties when they attempt to terminate a defined-benefit plan. This session addresses the lack of available insurers and the resulting effect on competition, a situation in which the plan sponsor may have difficulty finding any insurer to take plan benefits, the effect on prevalence of lump-sum distributions, and the role of the PBGC as insurer of last resort.

Description: 1994 SOA Meeting, San Antonio. This session covered the SEC letter on FAS 87, discount rates analyzing the current yield curve, matching bond portfolios to benefit payments, selection of salary scale, selection of return on assets, update on ASB proposed standards, and the relationship, if any, of funding assumptions to accounting assumptions.

Description: This article discusses how a new tax law in 1997 helps promote defined benefit [DB] plans as compared to defined contribution plans and offers additional ideas to encourage DB plans.

Description: This presentation session at the SOA's 1976 Houston Spring Meeting covered pension funding vehicles. The discussion included choice of vehicle Individual Policy, Deposit Administration, IPG, Self-Funding and Split-Funding, Investment Mix, Insurance Company versus Corporate Trustees and Outside Investment Advisers, Approaches to Plan Termination, and Small Plan considerations.