Description: The Employee Retiree Income Security Act, or ERISA, establishes an important statutory role for pension actuaries in the United States. As part of its statutory goal to protect the retirement security of America’s workers, ERISA requires tax-qualified defined benefit plans to obtain an actuarial valuation of plan reserves each year. When valuing the plan’s reserves, the actuary is required by ERISA to act on behalf of plan participants. Thus, the plan actuary fulfills an important role in maintaining the plan’s ability to meet its on-going obligations to the plan participants and their beneficiaries. From Pension Section News, April 2006, Issue No. 61.

Description: R. Evan Inglis, the new chairperson of the SOA/AAA Joint Pension Finance Task Force, shares with us his view of the important pension finance issues facing actuaries and the task force’s vision of how pension finance can strengthen the actuarial profession.

Description: Musings over the evolution of the Editor role “paperless” correspondence recent changes in the Pension Section Council and its Teams SOA support of the Pension Section and a sneak peek at possible action steps in response to the survey of Pension Section members and other retirement practitioners.

Description: In this article, Pension Section Council chairperson Marcus Robertson reviews 2009, looks forward to 2010, thanks departing council members and welcomes incoming members.

Description: A global perspective on risk and pensions, from a different perspective.

Description: In this article the editor previews the issue.

Description: Article from Pension Section News, May 2007, No. 64, discusses outcome-oriented approach to defined benefit investing. Instead of focusing on market indices, the focus is on achieving a specific real-world outcome for the defined benefit plan.

Description: This article discusses how much should defined-benefit pension plan assets be and should actuaries decide the answer to this question?

Description: This article offers a critique of explanatory text and principal economic and demographic assumption tables from the 2003 Annual report of the Board of Trustees of the OASDI Trust Fund. From Pension Section News, March 2004, Issue No. 54.

Description: This article summarizes 2005 cost-of-living adjustments related to employee benefit plans, including: 1. IRS limits applicable to retirement plans, transportation fringe benefits, adoption assistance programs, medical savings accounts, health savings accounts, high-deductible health plans and long-term care plans, 2. PBGC guaranteed benefits, 3. federal income tax factors, 4. Social Security and Supplemental Security Income, 5. Medicare, and 6. covered compensation. From Pension Section News, January 2005, Issue No. 57.