I have been saying to my colleagues for the past couple of years that the backlash against public employee pensions was on the horizon. Recent newspaper articles and pension studies confirm that the storm is finally here. With many private employees seeing their retirement savings halved during the recession and their employer-sponsored retirement plans cut […]Read More… from Public Pension Backlash
There’s an intriguing provision in the new health care reform law for retiree medical plans: 80% reinsurance for each early retiree’s claims between $15,000 and $90,000. The official summary is here. There’s a fixed amount of money available for this, just $5 billion. When it’s gone, it’s gone. And remember that $5 billion doesn’t go […]Read More… from The retiree health reinsurance gold rush
Yet another article on the growing popularity of cash balance plans was featured on the front page of Yahoo! finance this morning. It’s a bit of a generic overview, but gets the point across. One thing to note: the article states that annual interest crediting rates in these plans are guaranteed rates such as 4%, […]Read More… from More cash balance plan press coverage
During the recent economic recession, many pension plan sponsors have either been forced to shut facilities/plants or have experienced rounds of layoffs which reduced the number of active participants in the pension plan. As many pension plan sponsors know, a significant drop in the number of active participants can trigger a PBGC “reportable event.” This […]Read More… from Surprise, You’ve Got a PBGC Reportable Event
I’ve been amazed at how many times this little tidbit about the popularity of cash balance plans has appeared and reappeared in the news. That’s great, because many employers and financial planners are still unaware of what’s possible. It makes sense that a big surge has come since 2001. That was just after the […]Read More… from Cash balance plan surge
For a while now, we’ve been sharing knowledge around the office with “what I learned today” emails. Now we’re going to start sharing it with the rest of the world. Off we go… […]Read More… from What I learned today
