Description: The presenters will provide an update on discount rates developed from the expected return on assets used in going concern pension funding. They will include recent research on discount rates being used for U.S. public sector plans, U.S. Multiple Employer Pension Plans, and Ontario and British Columbia plans. A discussion of the emerging regulatory framework in Canada and the U.S. and changes to ASOP 4 and 27 will also be covered. Components of discount rates such as expenses and margins (PfADs) will also be covered.

Description: In this video, Steve Siegel, a Senior Practice Research Actuary at the Society of Actuaries Research Institute, introduces a report titled “What Retirement Plan Features Do Employees Really Want?” He discusses the methodology behind the research, which involved a survey and around 25,000 adults in the US using Conjoint Analysis. Siegel highlights key findings from the report, including preferences relating to retirement planning, availability of retirement plans, accessing benefits, risk tolerance, and leaving a legacy. He also mentions the Choice Simulator Tool, an Excel dashboard developed to explore benefit preferences further, and available for download. Contributors: Steve Siegel, ASA, MAAA; Rose Northon; Jon Forster ASA, MAAA

Description: This article discusses Life-Cycle Saving and Investing for retirement. The article reviews how actuaries can add to the discussion of what is wanted and needed in retirement and how traditional replacement ratios can be linked with consumption targets.

Description: This article discusses the affects of the Pension Protection Act of 2006 PPA primarily in relation to defined benefits pension DB plans.

Description: A frustrating aspect of pension funding rules for U.S. plan sponsors is that contribution requirements are adversely correlated with business cycles. For example, not only did plan sponsors get hit with large contribution requirements in the perfect storm of the early 2000s, but many sponsors were prohibited from contributing in the late 1990s boom due to full funding limitations. This is the abstract of a paper that proposes that plan sponsors be allowed to contribute the normal cost as a deductible contribution each year. In hindsight, this would have allowed plan sponsors to pay for benefits as they accrued in the late 1990s and ultimately mitigated some of the crash of the early 2000s. The authors aim to demonstrate that a contribution policy allowing contributions to be at least equal to the normal cost will result in less volatility of contributions and improve the funded status over time.

Description: This paper analyzes the likely increase in volatility for a representative plan and then considers the implications of adopting a hedged portfolio as a means of reducing the increased volatility. It then analyzes the effects of adopting a stochastic funding method which represents a simple extension of traditional expected value funding methods. From The Future of Pension Plan Funding and Disclosure Monograph, M-RS05-1.

Description: Essay reforming healthcare where participants have a vested interest in reaching the best answer.

Description: The purpose of this paper is to explore pension plan metrics— – measuring the behavior of a defined- benefit pension plan in an uncertain environment. Our goal is to measure and evaluate the quantitative impact of competing policy choices. We proceed by investigating some basic pension metrics, evaluating the characteristics of each using a simulated pension plan. We find that some typical metrics— – such as the mean and standard deviation— – are useful only in certain circumstances and that other less traditional measurements are sometimes better suited to evaluating policy choices.

Description: Updated metrics for measuring financial stress among multiemployer pension plans in the United States.

Description: This article discusses various measures that are used to determine a plan's funded status and offers suggestions for addressing pension funding issues.