Is there a website for you to search for other individual designed plan?

Just to check how they designed? or database stores all the individually designed plan documents?

You are probably in the right spot.  If you have questions, fire away.  

That said, IRS 5500 filings are in the public domain.  https://www.efast.dol.gov/5500Search/  One of the attachments to the Schedule SB is a summary of plan provisions. That won't give you the language from the plan document, but it will let you see how a plan is designed.

That said, your question is like walking out on a fishing pier and asking - is there any where I can see what kind of fish are out there?  

18 minutes ago, Effen said:

You are probably in the right spot.  If you have questions, fire away.  

That said, IRS 5500 filings are in the public domain.  https://www.efast.dol.gov/5500Search/  One of the attachments to the Schedule SB is a summary of plan provisions. That won't give you the language from the plan document, but it will let you see how a plan is designed.

That said, your question is like walking out on a fishing pier and asking - is there any where I can see what kind of fish are out there?  

We are a big corp(10K+ employees) and currently thinking about amending our DB plan to the cash balance. Just wondering if any similar size groups have done this before and what are the risks and challenges. And we don't want to throw tons of money there for Actuaries to research before we don't even know if it fits us.

You've come to the right place.  At the link above, you can filter on various characteristics: plan type, size, etc.  After such filtering, you will need to do some reading.  In addition, you've also got the right actuarial consultant:  I recommend you engage Effen for your study.

It has been done, yes. In the late 90s early 2000, I assisted with a plan with about 9000 active employees and 8000 deferred vested and a few thousand retirees. Only the active employees were converted to cash balance and the plan sponsor used a very very long transition and provided several overlapping years of both cash balance accruals and traditional formula accruals. In 2006, the Pension Protection Act came along and cleared up a lot of issues for such conversions, as the “wear-away” method was one of the glaring issues that needed to be resolved. An ERISA counsel and an experienced large plan actuary should have no problem guiding you. 

bargained or non-bargained?  

As John said this was fairly common when cash balance plans were coming into favor.  Most of the kinks have been worked out related to procedures and regulations.  The issue will be the impact on the participants.  Your actuary should be able to do a "winners and losers" graphic that will help you understand the impact of the change on the various groups of participants.  

Why are they considering a cash balance and not just moving fully DC?

P.S. Thanks for the plug David!  Unlike some of us who have retired, due to several acquisitions, I am now one of those "big company" actuaries.  Ha ha!

It's not impossible to find pre-approved documents for other plan sponsors online.  Cash balance plans were recently permitted to be on pre-approved documents, so maybe a search comes up with something at least illustrating the "behind the scenes" language in such a document illustrating how the plan addresses preserving prior benefit levels.  Even if it's not exactly what your company will want, it might spell out what that other plan did in such a way your attorneys could construct their product for you.

Large company with existing traditional DB plan, so you have a current actuary and given your size, would assume it is a large consulting firm actuary and (hopefully) not a bundled insurance company arrangement. Your actuary should be willing and able to elaborate the pros and cons of converting to a cash balance arrangement, both in general and specific to your organization, as well as with respect to your employees - and for little or no fee. When you get into modeling potential conversion formulas and the impact on employee benefits, company funding cost and (often the most relevant issue) company financial statement (pension liability and expense), then the consulting fees can be substantial - as are the fees to actually implement the conversion. If your actuary is unwilling or unable to have a no cost general pros and cons conversation with on this then maybe it's time to find a new one.

If you are a public company and/or in the finance/banking industry, then I'm somewhat surprised you haven't already converted to cash balance or at least had specific material conversations about it. For a company/plan your size, the design discussion should be within the scope of your overall compensation and retirement benefits/total rewards objectives and include a comparative market survey, which kind of looks like what you're asking of this forum. Personally, I say consult with your actuary and possibly engage a total rewards consultant to determine what your company wants to provide, then drill down to your potential cash balance design on a top down approach rather than trying to go bottom up.

We've worked on many conversions over the years, large and small, various industries (banks, hospitals, retail, etc.) and public and private companies. The primary objectives vary, including simplify plan, lower employer cost, lower employer F/S expense, keep employees whole. If your actuary won't engage in a complimentary discussion with you, I have no doubt that one of the actuaries of our company would love to have a conversation with you (as probably others in this forum would as well). Maybe I've dug way too deep and you only want some basic cash balance plan design education and thought it's be easier to ask here rather than sift through volumes of Google search articles, but you will need a deeper dive at some point to determine feasibility for your company.