Description: Chairperson's corner for January 2020 In the Public Interest.

Description: Presented for discussion are two research reports: Public Employee Retirement Plans Research: Experience Studies, Valuation Reports and Unfunded Liabilities, and Pension Plan Termination in Ontario since 1988. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 21, No. 4a.

Description: This article, another in the popular series devoted to tax basics, provides an overview of how the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), the law governing employment-based retirement and health plans, impacts the use of annuities in pension and 401(k) plans. The article explains which types of plans are subject to ERISA, and which are not; why the concept of "plan assets" is critical; what duties an insurance company or distributor might take on when an annuity is placed with a retirement plan; and finally what disclosures may be required. The article also includes a brief introduction to terminal funding annuities. This article is intended for those with no prior experience in ERISA. Because the vast majority of retirement assets are saved originally in employment based plans like pension and 401(k) plans, understanding the basics of ERISA is important for anyone who will have a career in annuities and life insurance.

Description: Other Post Employment Benefits OPEB deals with the promise of providing coverage for post employment non-pension benefits such as health care and life insurance. This article focuses on the recent implementation of GASB No. 43 and 45 which requires public entities to value and recognize the liability of post employment non-pension benefits.

Description: This article summarizes the presentations by the Society of Actuaries and the Academy of Actuaries at the January 2015 National Academy of Social Insurance (NASI) Roundtables in Washington DC. SOA presented on the 2014 SOA monograph series "The Link between Retirement Security and Long-Term Care."

Description: The purpose of this article is to demonstrate that the virtues of “marked-to-market” pension accounting are greatly exaggerated for both public and private pension plans. It is demonstrated that the “marked-to-market” paradigm, as applied to pensions, is based on a questionable economic foundation and may produce plenty of “misinformation” of its own. From the Pension Section News, September 2008, Issue No. 68.

Description: Comments on Robert North’s paper, a real case study of disclosing MVL in a public employee retirement system.

Description: Response to David Kausch’s comments on the paper.

Description: In February 2008, the American Academy of Actuaries and and the Society of Actuaries Pension Section Council co-sponsored a lively roundtable discussion of the role of funding, disclosure and investment for public pension plans. This article presents the author’s observations and interpretations of the roundtable discussion.

Description: This is the discussion to the paper, The Actuarial Implications of the 1951 Railroad Retirement Amendments by Joseph Musher. From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1952, Vol. 4, No. 10.