Is My Pension In Jeopardy?

[Andy the Actuary]

For the past 18 years I received a monthly pension from Towers Watson, which used to be Towers Perrin, which used to be TPF&C, which gobbled up my roots at Tillinghast, Nelson & Warren. Now, I get this "thing" called an "Annual Funding Notice." It tells me the company should have contributed $125 million in 2013. They didn't tell me what they contributed, but gee, $125 million is a lot of billable hours.

Oh, I turn to page 2 and it shows assets of $2.2 billion and liabilities of $1.8 billion. So, I feel somewhat comforted. Then, I see some credit balances of about $450 million. I wonder what they are. Obviously, something bad because they're subtracting them from the assets. Is $450 million a debt the Plan owes? Does the Plan not really have enough assets?

Is my robust monthly pension of $115.05 secure or do I need to make other provisions for my retirement. In any event, I'm certainly pleased that Congress forces TW to set the record straight for me so that my former employer does not hide the precarious shape the Plan is in.

[Peter Gulia]

What about requesting the plan's whole actuarial valuation report, so you can read all the assumptions for yourself?

(Or am I missing the humor in something you already understand?)

[david rigby]

Sorry Peter. You are missing the humor.

Andy is pointing out the the annual funding notice (supposedly an "upgrade" required by PPA) provides more (raw) information than the SAR it replaced, but less useful information.

[My 2 cents]

Not that the SAR was all that useful for defined benefit plans!

[Andy the Actuary]

The AFN is far more useful than the SAR. With it, you can cover the bottom of the bird cage for 7 days rather than just one.

[Tom Poje]

while true, you might raise the anger of animal rights groups who would pity the poor animal having to read that stuff.

[Andy the Actuary]

Hadn't thought of that. Better place the paper print side down so that the birds may use it for the intended purpose.