Pension

The Pension Committee published Working With Auditors of Pension and OPEB Plans, a practice note providing actuaries with insights on engaging productively with auditors.

The Pension Committee released a public policy practice note to provide information to actuaries on current and emerging practices for measuring obligations of defined benefit pension plans that include variable annuity benefits.

The Lifetime Income Risk Joint Committee released an issue brief, Actuarial Observations on Retiree Income Approaches, on how actuarial methods and solutions apply to the risk management inherent to retirement income planning. Released in conjunction with the relaunch of the Academy’s and Society of Actuaries’ jointly developed Actuaries Longevity Illustrator, the issue brief provides a helpful overview and context for understanding how these tools can be used to mitigate risk and optimize retirement income.

The Pension Practice Council released an issue brief, Pension Plan Maturity—Why Big Plans Mean Big Risk, that reviews measures of plan maturity, examines the resulting challenges, addresses potential strategies to ensure benefit security, and provides a framework to mitigate the risks associated with a mature plan.

The Lifetime Income Risk Joint Committee sent a letter to the Employee Benefits Security Administration providing comments on the ERISA Advisory Council Report. 

The Pension Committee, Multiemployer Plans Committee, and Public Plans Committee submitted comments to the Actuarial Standards Board regarding exposure drafts of Actuarial Standard of Practice Nos. 27 and 35.

The Multiemployer Plans Committee of the American Academy of Actuaries released notes from its March 2019 meeting with representatives of the U.S. Department of Treasury, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC), and the Department of Labor (DOL) pertaining to applications by plans in critical and declining status to suspend benefits or partition liabilities as permitted under the Multiemployer Pension Reform Act of 2014, withdrawal liability, mergers and transfers, and possible multiemployer pension reform legislation.

The Pension Committee submitted comments to the Society of Actuaries Retirement Plans Experience Committee regarding the Pri-2012 exposure draft.

The Academy has released a new Essential Elements paper, Creating a National Retirement Policy, outlining the ways in which a comprehensive national retirement policy could potentially address concerns about retirement security in the United States. Essential Elements is a series designed to make actuarial analyses of public policy issues clearer to general audiences.

The Academy hosted a briefing, “Strengthening the System for the Future,” moderated by vice president for pension issues, Josh Shapiro, and featuring expert panelists from the Multiemployer Plans Committee, to provide essential background on the multiemployer pension crisis and its current state. This was the third and final briefing in the Academy’s “Multiemployer Pension Crisis: A 360-Degree Look at the Issue and Potential Reforms” series, intended to equip attendees with a solid foundation of the past, present, and potential future of multiemployer pension plans.

The Academy hosted a briefing, featuring vice president for pension issues, Josh Shapiro, and expert panelists from the Multiemployer Plans Committee, to provide essential background on the multiemployer pension crisis and its current state. This briefing is the second in the Academy’s “Multiemployer Pension Crisis: A 360-Degree Look at the Issue and Potential Reforms” briefing series, which is intended to equip attendees with a solid foundation of the past, present, and potential future of multiemployer pension plans.

The Academy hosted a briefing, featuring expert panelists from the Multiemployer Plans Committee, to provide essential background on the multiemployer pension crisis and its current state. This briefing is the first in the Academy’s “Multiemployer Pension Crisis: A 360-Degree Look at the Issue and Potential Reforms” briefing series, which is intended to equip attendees with a solid foundation of the past, present, and potential future of multiemployer pension plans.

A new issue brief developed by the Academy’s Retirement System Assessment and Policy Committee explores the concept of a national retirement policy, including the potential benefits of such a policy and the various topics that it might address. Read the news release.

The Social Security Committee released an issue brief on the 2019 Social Security Trustees Report that examines the social insurance program’s long-term solvency issues and recommends that Congress should act soon to improve the long-term financial outlook of the program

The Academy updated its Essential Elements reports on Medicare’s Long-Term Sustainability Challenge and Securing Social Security with information from the newly released 2019 Medicare and Social Security trustees reports. The Essential Elements series is designed to make actuarial analyses of public policy issues clearer to general audiences.