Commentaries
01/22/24
What lessons can plans that received Special Financial Assistance (SFA) learn from their experience to avoid future funding challenges? The author suggests that improved risk assessment and actuarial reporting as well as investing in a cash flow matching bond portfolio may help plans remain solvent indefinitely.
03/21/23
While higher interest rates are causing pain in many sectors of the economy, public pension plans may benefit from them because they increase the investment returns they can expect.
01/19/23
Why do states, municipalities, and other government organizations offer pension plans? In theory, plan sponsors should be able to articulate the objectives of their public pension plans (the reasons for offering them); however, few can actually do so.
01/05/23
For the first time since the Society of Actuaries (SOA) began publishing annual mortality improvement scales for pension plans in 2014, it did not release an updated scale in 2022.
04/25/22
As the United States enters the third year of the COVID-19 pandemic, sponsors of group health care plans for employees and their dependents continue to face uncertainties and challenges related to both the direct and indirect costs of this health crisis. Each plan sponsor's experience with COVID-19 will vary by the demographics of covered members, including geographic region, vaccination rates, ages and more. This article will review the direct and indirect costs for self-funded health care plans related to the pandemic and provide strategies for predicting and addressing these costs.
10/21/21
Cheiron's Elizabeth Wiley and Dan Doonan of the National Institute on Retirement Security discussed Not All Hybrid Plans Are Created Equal on The World of Multiemployer Benefit Funds Podcast.
10/07/21
Cheiron's Elizabeth Wiley and Dan Doonan of the National Institute on Retirement Security describe hybrid retirement plans and how they may make multiemployer plans more secure.
10/01/21
As the COVID-19 pandemic unfolded in 2020, causing steep drops in the stock market and a surge in unemployment, public pension plans were challenged to keep operating and delivering retirement checks while concerns about their financial condition kept building.
02/16/21
Over the last 20 years, many plan sponsors and providers have replaced their traditional defined benefit pension plans with 401(k)-style defined contribution plans with the goal of controlling costs and minimizing the volatility of contributions. But one of the risks of disbanding a traditional pension plan and moving participants to a DC plan is that it leaves participants to fend for themselves and may result in lower benefits. Plan sponsors that seek to provide the best of both traditional DB plans and DC plans may want to consider adopting an adjustable pension plan.
07/08/19
Just days ahead of the House Ways and Means Committee's planned markup of legislation that would offer government loans for struggling multiemployer pension plans, conservative academics have launched an all-out attack on the bill. A commentary by Gene Kalwarski. First published in The Hill.
03/18/19
The Rehabilitation for Multiemployer Pensions Act offers the best chance of preventing the insolvency of the 121 failing multiemployer pension plans covering 1.3 million workers. By David Blitzstein, Jeffrey B. Cohen, Gene Kalwarski and Judy Xanthopoulos
02/01/19
California county pension plans in SACRS or the State Association of County Retirement Systems are more mature than the typical public plan nationwide and thus more sensitive to investment volatility, according to a survey by Cheiron actuaries published in the Winter 2019 SACRS magazine. See page 18.
05/10/18
I believe all public pension plans should regularly conduct stress tests. Those that don't risk having stress testing thrust upon them by lawmakers. More importantly, stress testing is critical to the long-term success of public pension plans.
12/06/17
Cheiron CEO Gene Kalwarski was honored by the publication of a piece he wrote for the Forbes website, under the aegis of Dr. Olivia Mitchell, executive director of the Pension Research Council of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.