Description: Small pension plans, are using Cost of Living Allowances 'COLA' in calculating benefits. This paper examines ways to handle COLA in valuations.

Description: In March this year a charter for the new corporation, the College Retirement Equities Fund, was granted by the State of New York and it is expected that within a few months the Fund will begin operations as a supplement to TIAA annuities. The purpose of this paper is to describe this rather novel type of corporation, which presents some unusual and interesting actuarial problems. Comparisons of the performance of fixed annuities vs. variable annuities are provided.

Description: This article describes the development of the uninsured pensioner, UP-94 Mortality Table, including a comparison with other tables and description of projection methodologies using Projection Scale AA.

Description: This paper explores how change in societal forces can affect the systems for providing security including private pensions, social security, life insurance and health insurance. The societal forces examined are changes in family, role of women, inflation and the age composition of population. From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1978, Vol. 30.

Description: This paper examines tandem levels of salary and interest rates and finds that the absolute level of each assumption as well as the differential are significant cost determinants for defined benefit pension plans. In forming best-estimate salary and interest rate assumptions, the actuary must reconcile the difference, if any, between the currently observed rates and the valuation assumptions. Common practice is to choose expected long-term rather than observed rates for valuation purposes. The error in this procedure is analyzed and found to be tolerable for strictly temporary discrepancies between observed rates and valuation assumptions. For situations where these discrepancies are expected to persist for some time, a need is shown for nonuniform, calendar-year assumptions or their equivalent in order to develop best-estimate assumptions. Followed by several discussion papers submitted

Description: This paper develops a family of accrued benefit actuarial cost methods which permits the purchase of retirement income at either an accelerating or decelerating rate. From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1967, Vol. 19, Pt. 1, No. 54.

Description: This paper will attempt to describe certain principles and practices relative to the establishment and operation of funded severance pay programs, with particular reference to the actuarial aspects involved. From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1958, Vol. 10, No. 27.

Description: This is a discussion of the paper, Actuarial Aspects of the Railroad Retirement System by Joseph Musher. From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1950, Vol. 2, No. 4.

Description: This summary is intended to provide the pension actuary with guidance in interpreting and using the termination and retirement information in the 2003 SOA Pension Plan Termination and Retirement Study. The tables in the study were developed based on 1.7 million life years of data from 112 plans collected primarily from actuarial consulting firms for the period 1995 – 2000.

Description: Appendix B to SOA Research Report: Models for Retirement Policy Analysis. This appendix describes several databases that have been used for study of retirement, pension and social security policy.