Description: This article was commissioned by the Society of Actuaries Pension Section Research Team to provide practitioners and researchers with a listing of Web sites containing information about defined benefit plans outside the United States. It also lists some non-Internet information sources. The research team’s primary motivation for the article was its belief that readily available comparative information on the pension environment in other countries, including current design and funding issues, would benefit practitioners and researchers dealing with similar issues.

Description: Issued in 2004 with provisions effective in 2006-2009, the United States accounting standard, GASB 45, requires local and state governments to account for their post-retirement medical and life insurance programs on an accrual basis for the first time. This standard is creating new demands for actuarial services. This article is written for the experienced private sector post-retirement medical plan actuaries with a strong FAS 106 background who are now working on GASB 45 valuations. For these actuaries, there are many similarities between a FAS 106 valuation and a GASB 45 valuation, but there are also many differences.

Description: This article looks at our use of technology- then and now. A reprinted article from the very first Pension Section News in June 1989, written by Barbara Choyke and titled '1,100 View SOA’s First Teleconference,' is juxtaposed against a view of today’s webcast communications.

Description: The purpose of this article is to demonstrate that the virtues of “marked-to-market” pension accounting are greatly exaggerated for both public and private pension plans. It is demonstrated that the “marked-to-market” paradigm, as applied to pensions, is based on a questionable economic foundation and may produce plenty of “misinformation” of its own. From the Pension Section News, September 2008, Issue No. 68.

Description: In this inaugural, rotating-author column from CERAs Chartered Enterprise Risk Analysts, Minaz Lalani provides insights into the different actions that key stakeholders governments, employers, markets/financial institutions and individuals can take to manage the systemic risks that affect retirement systems in the current environment.

Description: In this article, the authors focus on the disparities for women and minorities in retirement security with emphasis on issues that may be of particular interest to actuaries. From Pension Section News, October 2011, Issue No. 75.

Description: Column highlighting the upcoming release for RP2014/MP-2014, rationale for new scales including two-dimensional mortality projection techniques and upcoming SOA educational opportunities on these topics.

Description: Interview with Liz Davidson, Founder and CEO of Financial Finesse.

Description: This article discusses the characteristics of companies dedicated to being leaders in the Term market and the role that reinsurers play.

Description: In actuarial work, we are frequently confronted with problems with more than one apparently reasonable answer. This article deals with one of these, where the Federal DAC cost can be applied in an apparently reasonable, but incorrect, manner.