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: A discussion of the various Pension Plan Asset Valuation Methods. FromThe Pension Forum, August 2001, Volume 13, Issue No. 1.

Description: This is an essay on the measurement of the reasonableness of each individual non-economic actuarial assumption. From the Pension Section News, September 2008, Issue No. 68.

Description: Part 3 proposes solutions to the third of three flaws of the current financial model to obtaining the fair value of the public sector employer’s pension benefit liability.

Description: The purpose of this study is to provide quantitative information illustrating the impact of reflecting mortality improvement using a “Generational Approach” in the actuarial valuations of defined benefit pension plans versus reflecting mortality improvement by more traditional methods.

Description: The abstract for a paper that describes the history of traditional topics like actuarial cost methods and assumptions, the history of past inquiries into the dynamic and stochastic nature of pension costs, and the perceptions and concerns of pension actuaries of the past. Presented at The Future of Pension Plan Funding and Disclosure symposium held July 14-15, 2005 in Washington, DC.

Description: Abstract: 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: A review of the actuarial aspects of Cash Balance Retirement Plans and original actuarial research regarding the design and valuation of such plans.

Description: In this paper, how various factors affect the mortality of retirees is investigated. It is found that the effect is often different for older ages than for younger ages. The method to develop actuarial models that take into account the factors will be discussed. From Actuarial Research Clearing House, Volume 38, No. 1.

Description: This paper discusses an asset smoothing technique where the asset values are adjusted based on reasonable investment indices. From The Pension Forum, August 2001, Volume 13, Issue No. 1.