Employers in the troubled eurozone need to take preventative action to help protect the investments of their pension plan members, according to a new release from Mercer.
The shift to more complicated arrangements that require additional communication also means there is a greater role for advisors in the decision-making process.
After years of waiting for its DC plan members to turn into amateur investment managers, Marc Poupart, divisional vice-president, pension and retirement programs, with Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC), says the organization realized it was time for a change.
While senior decision-makers agree that health benefits and retirement plans play a significant role in keeping employees happy and engaged, there is a disconnect when it comes to understanding the ROI.
As Benefits Canada celebrates its 35th anniversary, we took the opportunity to go back to the source to explore why employers offer employee benefits programs in the first place.
The contrast between the glacial pace at which pensions change and the rapid pace at which technology changes couldn’t be more striking.
It was June 1990. The occasion was the annual ACPM conference, and we were in a big room at the Château Laurier in Ottawa.
Over the past 73 years, the Co-operative Superannuation Society Pension Plan (CSS plan) (No. 60 on Benefits Canada’s 2012 Top 100 Pension Funds Report) has weathered many storms. Since its launch in 1939, global markets have been rocked by a number of economic crises, and most pension plans have seen their assets rise and fall sharply as a consequence.
Given the increased scrutiny around pension plan arrangements, plan sponsors today are spending more time monitoring and discussing plan design, contribution levels, risk appetite and investment mandates. And, with increasing frequency, they’re finding it necessary to make changes.
The DB versus DC debate has been boiling away for many years. Hopefully you will find the following adds a few new thoughts to this continuing saga.