Description: This paper examines how the cash balance plan design is related to the normal cost and accrued liability in the various actuarial cost methods, as well as the interaction of the economic assumptions in the valuation. The analysis will show that the traditional cost methods may understate the actual liability. The paper also presents an alternative cost method, along with its advantages and disadvantages. From Cash Balance Symposium Monograph, M-RS02-3.

Description: Is the New CPI Different? The article discusses the changes made to the CPI, whether it is an accurate measure of inflation and the implications for pension plans.

Description: The Retirement Plans Experience Committee of the Society of Actuaries (RPEC) is pleased to present this annual update to the RPEC_2014 model and its corresponding mortality improvement scales. This new version of the model reflects historical U.S. population mortality experience through 2018. For clarity, the updated mortality improvement scale based on this 2020 version of the model is called Scale MP-2020. The Scale MP-2020 Report has been posted below along with an Excel version of Scale MP-2020.

Description: Chairperson talks about the activities of the section.

Description: The Retirement Plans Experience Committee (RPEC) hired Ernst & Young to perform a literature review and assessment of mortality improvement rates in the United States population.

Description: An article that highlights the paper Retirement Trends and Patterns in the 1990s: The End of an Era? The trend toward earlier retirement is documented and the influences of a possible shift in this trend are considered. From the Pension Section News, August 1998.

Description: Eric Friedman’s comments on ‘The Case for Stochastic Present Values,” by Dimitry Mindlin

Description: The current financial model put forth as the market value of public sector pension benefit liabilities is simply the expected cash flows of the accumulated benefit obligation, as defined for current private sector financial reporting, discounted using a risk-free yield curve. This model is in serious need of an overhaul. This monograph addresses this issue.

Description: A common approach to estimating the total amount of savings required to fund retirement is to first apply a generic “replacement rate” to pre-retirement income, such as 80%, to get the desired retirement income need. That need is then assumed to increase annually at the rate of inflation for the duration of retirement, which is generally assumed to be some fixed period, such as 30 years. Using government data along with a fairly simple market and mortality model, we explore these assumptions to more accurately estimate the true cost of retirement

Description: This article describes behavioral finance and its relevance in identifying analytics and processes suitable for a control environment for the actuarial aspects of an insurance company.