General Electric Co. is freezing its U.S. defined benefit pension plan for about 20,000 employees with salaried benefits, reducing its pension deficit by between US$5 million and US$8 million. The affected employees will cease accruing additional benefits or make employee contributions after Jan. 1, 2021, but benefits accrued until Dec. 31, 2020 will be unaffected. As of the […]
Across Canada, innovative pension plan design options are continuing to emerge for employers considering a move away from traditional single employer, in-house defined benefit or defined contribution plans. During an event last week at Osler, Hoskin and Harcourt LLP’s office in Toronto, four pension industry professionals shared their experiences developing new plan design options. Speaking […]
Two more organizations are joining the Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology pension plan’s DBplus. The University of Saskatchewan and Federated Colleges Non-Academic Pension Plan, represented by the Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 1975, has joined the plan as part of its latest collective agreement. Effective Sept. 1, 2019, 1,300 plan members will join the […]
The funded ratio of public pension plans in the U.S. has edged up slightly to 73 per cent in fiscal year 2018, but has been largely flat for several years and is below its 2001 peak, according to a new analysis. The research, from the Center for State and Local Government Excellence and the Boston College Center for […]
The solvency positions of Canadian defined benefit pension plans declined slightly in the third quarter of 2019, according to new surveys from Aon and Mercer. Aon’s latest median solvency ratio survey reported a drop to 98.6 per cent from 99.3 per cent in the second quarter, while Mercer’s pension health index recorded 94 per cent […]
The Ontario Medical Association is partnering with Common Wealth to offer its physician members and their spouses access to a retirement plan. The Advantages Retirement Plan, which will be rolled out later this year, is the result of more than two years of research on physician retirement readiness and input from OMA members. A survey conduced […]
As membership in traditional defined benefit pension plans continues to decline, it’s becoming more common to see “contingent” plans — including target-benefit, shared-risk, multi-employer and jointly sponsored — which require members to take on at least some of the risk that benefits may or may not meet expectations. At the same time, the term “sustainability” is […]
The 2008 financial crisis is an event that defined benefit plan sponsors won’t soon forget. Roller-coaster markets exposed gaps in their investment strategies, while de-risking appeared on pension committee agendas as they assessed the damage and focused on the road to fully funded statuses. Back in 2008, few tools were available to de-risk pension plans. […]
Blue Pier Administration Corp. is appointing Brian Mills to the board of trustees of its retirement plan. “Brian brings to the board a wealth of knowledge, experience and expertise in pension governance and administration,” said Lesley Gallinger, board chair, in a press release. “We are delighted to welcome Brian and look forward to working with […]
In seeking to create its own police department, the City of Surrey, B.C. has worked out the pension portability problem for its future officers. A formalized agreement between the city’s municipal pension plan and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police plan will allow officers moving to a job at the city to fully transfer their RCMP pensions. As of Aug. 9, 2019, […]