Description: An interview with actuary Lee Gold reveals preliminary results of a recent SOA research project which surveyed employees on what retirement plan features they prefer.

Description: In this article, the author talks about the pension environment and pension plans in Germany.

Description: Designing an international pension program for mobile Employees. From The Pension Forum, January 2003, Volume 15, Issue No. 1.

Description: In this article the author responds the current defined benefit pension plan concepts that are being challenged and presents his proposal for revised plan design, funding and investment concepts. From Pension Section News, March 2004, Issue No. 54.

Description: While the Pension Protection Act resolved a lot of issues about how employers could fund defined benefit plans and how they could safely put 401k plans on autopilot, the legislation didn’t solve the bigger problem of making sure that all employees have enough savings for retirement, observers say. For this reason, groups of employers, actuaries, academics and industry experts have come together to introduce new plan designs that address many of the elements that the Pension Protection Act left out. This article summarizes these proposals.

Description: The traditional defined-benefit (DB) plan is a type of plan structured to provide the greatest degree of retirement income security, designed to pay out a guaranteed retirement income for the life of the retiree (and, when applicable, a beneficiary). However, over the last several decades, the number of private-sector employees covered under these traditional plans has decreased dramatically and been replaced by defined contribution (DC) plans. In contrast, public-sector retirement plans, which are exempt from ERISA, have seen a much smaller decline in DB plans. There are many differences in the private and public sector that likely contributed to this phenomenon, but ERISA and the many amendments to it has been a major factor.

Description: This article presents the findings of an Urban Institute study sponsored by the Pension Section and the Actuarial Foundation examining the election of joint and survivor annuities by married adults. From Pension Section News, June 2004, Issue No. 55.

Description: This article discusses the findings of the Retirement Plan Preferences Survey which asked workers participating in defined benefit plans and defined contribution plans which retirement plans they prefer and what they understand. From Pension Section News, March 2004, Issue No. 54.

Description: A Benefit Value Comparison of a Cash Balance Plan with a Traditional Final Average Pay Defined-Benefit Plan by Steve J. Kopp and Lawrence J. Sher. From The Pension Forum, October 1998, Volume 11, Issue No. 1.

Description: This article looks at the need for new defined benefit plan designs and their advantages. From Pension Section News, September 2004, Issue No. 56.