Description: Chapter 8 examines several issues related to DROP features added to ERISA-covered plans, and several issues related to Canadian plans. From Design and Actuarial Aspects of Deferred Retirement Option Programs, M-RS03-2.

Description: This teaching session focuses on the IRS and PBGC requirements for terminating a defined benefit plan, both with and without sufficient plan assets. It also looks at alternatives to plan termination, such as plan freeze and plan merger. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries Vol. 5, No. 4.

Description: The article is a summary of Society of Actuaries report entitled “Annuity Market Pricing Approaches” sponsored by the Retirement Section Research Committee. The report examines the Canadian Institute of Actuaries (CIA) methodology of developing solvency valuation assumptions, compares it to methods used in the U.S., and considers if it could be used in other markets, such as U.S. group annuities or individual annuities

Description: This is a discussion about pension plan design and mechanics including: 1. Adjustment of pension benefits for inflation, 2. Major revisions or plan terminations, 3. Development of group pension contracts, and 4. Design problems of negotiated plans. From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1967, Vol. 19 Pt. 2, No. 55.

Description: This discussion focuses on the advantages and disadvantages, from the viewpoint of smaller insurance companies in the United States and Canada, of entering the field of small pension plans. Considerations involve whether a smaller company entering the field should offer group annuities, and to what extent are special premium rates, plans of agents' compensation, and policy forms necessary for a smaller company to compete successfully for individual policy pension plans. From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1961, Vol. 13, Pt. 2.

Description: Based on work performed by Bob Howard, a former member of RPEC, the SOA developed a spreadsheet-based program that allows users to create a customized mortality improvement scale using the RPEC_2014 model. The RPEC_O2_v2018 model found here utilizes the same projection methodology underpinning the RPEC_2014 model except that the historical rates have been developed using “order-2” Whittaker-Henderson graduation rather than “order-3”. Similar to the RPEC_2014_v2018 model, this tool reflects historical U.S. mortality experience through 2016 and can be used to model different assumption sets.

Description: This annual update to the RPEC_2014 model and corresponding mortality improvement scales reflects historical U.S. population mortality experience through 2016.

Description: Metrics for measuring pension plan contributions against benchmarks for achieving specific financial funding goals.

Description: This report includes information on variations in wind-up funding levels and examines differences in required PfADs attributable to differences in plan design.

Description: This article addresses how the ARPA has lessened the financial burden on sponsors of corporate defined benefit plans.