Cost of Actuarial Services

[Guest forum4]

Can anyone point me to a study of the costs an employer pays for actuarial services on a pension plan? Our contract with our actuary is to be renewed shortly and we are trying to determine how much a plan of similar assets and participant size would pay. We are reluctant to perform a RFP due to the time and costs involved. At this point, we just want to make sure what we pay is at least reasonable.

Thanks

[Effen]

benefits link

This might help, but as you will see, there can be wide swings depending on the type of plan.

The fees quoted in the post were most likely "small plan" type plans i.e.: 20 participants and may not be applicable to larger, more traditional, db plans. That is just my opinion, I didn't post the schedule.

Your fee is impacted by # participants and complexity of the benefit formulas (retirement, early, disability, death). Assets generally have nothing to do with the process, so be careful of anyone who wants to charge an asset based fee.

The RFP process doesn't have to be involved. Most firms just need a copy of the last valuation report to give you an estimate.