db plan statistics

[Guest cooper]

Where can I find statistics on payment options chosen by participants in DB plans - % opting for life only, life w/ period certain, js, lump sum, etc.

Also, % of plans offering lump sum payments.

Is it a correct to assume that the majority of db plans do not offer lump sum benefits unless the balance is under a certain benchmark?

[Guest pension222]

I've been working on DB plans for 16 years, 13 years of which were working on small (under 100 life) plans.

For those first 13 years, every DB plan I worked on offered a lump-sum as a distribution option. Small plans, especially truly small ones with less than 20 participants, don't want to be in the business of paying an annuity from the trust and also don't want to mess around with buying an annuity. Truthfully, for those 13 years I had never seen an annuity distribution from a DB plan.

But then 3 years ago I joined a really large international consulting firm and suddenly all of the DB plans I worked on had 500-10,000 participants. None of these plans offered a lump-sum other than for deminimus cash-outs.

From my experience, the difference stems from the type of the plan, and by this I mean, is it a small DB plan, designed to primarily benefit the owner(s), or is it a true retirement plan for the employees? The former almost all pay lump-sums of any size, and the latter only pay the denimimus lump-sums.

The large DB plans I have worked on almost all offer other annuity type option's such as various J&S percentages as well as a C&C option. Again, these are usually not found in small DB plans.

As a final note, it is not uncommon for a small DB plan to offer a terminated participant the choice between an immediate lump-sum and a deferred annuity but not an immediate annuity, which according to 1.417(e)-1(B) is just wrong.