Description: This paper evaluates a number of hybrid pension plans, including hybrid plans used to provide social security benefits in some countries. The paper provides an overview of types of hybrid plans provided around the world.

Description: The Society of Actuaries’ Retirement 20/20 project kicked off in 2006 with a conference titled “Building the Foundations for New Retirement Systems.” The conference focused on needs, risks and roles for the stakeholders in today’s retirement system, and discussed how to make social insurance, private pensions, private savings, annuities and other retirement plans work better in the 21st century. One key theme that emerged was that wherever possible, systems should be designed to self-adjust, specifically to correct for changes in economic and demographic conditions. The Pension Section Council of the SOA commissioned this paper to explore where self-adjusting systems are in place today and what they do and don’t do. Most self-adjusting mechanisms that exist today are in social insurance systems, and they often focus on ways to adjust for changes in longevity. The Pension Section Council hopes that this paper will spur researchers to develop more ways that self-adjusting mechanisms might work to shape social insurance and private retirement plans into the 21st century.