Description: While the Pension Protection Act resolved a lot of issues about how employers could fund defined benefit plans and how they could safely put 401k plans on autopilot, the legislation didn’t solve the bigger problem of making sure that all employees have enough savings for retirement, observers say. For this reason, groups of employers, actuaries, academics and industry experts have come together to introduce new plan designs that address many of the elements that the Pension Protection Act left out. This article summarizes these proposals.

Description: This paper is from the Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1956 Volume 8, Number 20. It was presented at the 1956 Spring Meetings of the Society of Actuaries for discussion. The author presents and discusses the provisions of typical agents’ and general agents’ retirement plans. The author then discusses the cost limitations of section 213 of the New York Insurance Law as they apply to agents’ compensation in general, and retirement plans in particular, including a technique acceptable to the New York Insurance Department for demonstrating compliance. The author demonstrates the practical application of this technique with a model submission.

Description: In this article, the author talks about the pension environment and pension plans in Germany.

Description: This article discusses the non-qualified market opportunities presented by the new limitations imposed on qualified pension plans.

Description: Anna gives us an excellent “layman’s overview” of concerns, challenges and potential areas for improvement in the area of pre-retirement disability—a contingency that is perhaps too frequently ignored or underemphasized in the general pension actuarial literature during the trend from DB to DC retirement vehicles.

Description: This article discusses building new retirement systems. It references an article published in the Economist, 'Actuaries and the pensions crunch: When the spinning stops,' Jan. 26, 2006, and the stir that article created in the pension community. This article suggests that we take our understanding of the global economy, business models, shareholder expectations, employee expectations, employment risks, pre-retirement risks and the emerging retirement paradigm and create a new retirement system. From Pension Section News, April 2006, No. 61.

Description: The SOA Research Institute tasked the Workforce Science Institute to investigate how retirement benefit plans can affect a plan sponsor’s workforce and business results. The following is an interview with Rick Guzzo and Haig Nalbantian co-founders of the Workforce Science Institute who are the researchers on this project. The interview gives a helicopter view of the project as well as provides some “food for thought” on how retirement plans can be designed to produce an effective workforce.

Description: This article looks at the need for new defined benefit plan designs and their advantages. From Pension Section News, September 2004, Issue No. 56.

Description: Many retirement actuaries have experience developing, implementing, and monitoring Liability Driven Investing (LDI) strategies for plan sponsors. These strategies typically involve modifying a plan’s investment strategy to remove a significant portion of the investment and interest rate risk now or at some point in the future when specific triggers are met. The tactics often involve the use of fixed income assets to cash flow and/or duration match the liabilities. In the spirit of helping actuaries expand their roles in an evolving defined contribution world, this article explores the application of LDI and derisking strategies within defined contribution and individual retirement accounts. The economic theory behind this approach is called the lifecycle hypothesis, or lifecycle finance. The benefits of the lifecycle finance method are that it provides a safe approach to save for retirement and a secure source of floor income during retirement. Similar to pension plans, each individual has his or her own idiosyncratic needs, wants, and risks that should be considered. Actuaries are uniquely situated to help defined contribution plan sponsors, individuals, and even themselves implement the lifecycle finance approach by developing and distributing tools and methods that focus on income (rather than wealth), LDI strategies, and personalization.

Description: This article talks about the steps taken by one corporation to provide a comprehensive LTD program for their employees.