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New Orleans Employees' Retirement System Claims Mattel and Auditing Firm PwC Misled Investors

"The lawsuit claims the company understated its income tax expense by $109 million in the third quarter of 2017 and then worked with its auditor, PwC, to manipulate its accounting to conceal this misstatement, according to the suit." [New Orleans Employees' Retirement System vs. Mattel, No. 20-1056 (C.D. Cal. complaint filed Jan. 31, 2020)]

Health and Well-Being Touchstone Survey 2012 from PwC

The linked web page includes a button to download the survey; free registration is required. "The 2012 survey provides summary data on medical and prescription drug plan design, costs, COBRA rates, wellness and disease management programs, work-life programs, fringe benefits, future healthcare strategies, retirement benefits, and health reform."

Behind the Numbers: 2013 Health Care and Medical Cost Trends Report by PwC

"This PwC Health Research Institute (HRI) report looks at the projected increase in the cost of medical services for 2013. Medical cost trend is the primary factor in setting health insurance premiums. Commercial insurers and large employers use this information to estimate what the same health plan would cost in the following year.... [HRI] projects medical costs will increase 7.5% for 2013, the fourth year in a row of relatively flat growth"

PwC Denied Summary Judgment on Whipsaw Calculation Claim

In Laurent v. PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, former participants of the firm's Retirement Benefit Accumulation Plan (RBAP) argued their distributions using a whipsaw calculation improperly used the 30-year Treasury rate to project their benefits to age 65 when a set rate between 7% and 9% would have been more accurate.

Text of Second Circuit Opinion: Cash Balance Plan Definition of 'Normal Retirement Age' at Five Years of Service Violates ERISA (PDF)

47 pages. "[T]he Plan defines 'normal retirement age' as '[t]he earlier of the date a Participant attains age 65 or completes five 'Years of Service' at PwC.... The repetition of the phrase, 'normal retirement age,' in Section 3(24)(A) [of ERISA] is no mere tautology. Rather, it suggests that 'the time' that a plan establishes as its normal retirement age must have some reasonable relationship to the age at which participants would normally retire.... If any age will do, why can't PwC set 35 as its normal retirement age? Or 25? Or 12? Setting a normal retirement age at any of these calendar ages is no more consistent with the statute than defining normal retirement age as five years of service. PwC cannot reasonably expect its employees to retire at 35 any more than the National Basketball Association can reasonably expect its players to retire at 65." [Laurent v. PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, No. 14-1179 (2d Cir. July 23, 2015)]

Medical Cost Trend: Behind the Numbers

"For the fourth year, health plan actuaries ... anticipate medical cost trends for the Group and Individual markets to remain elevated. Based on their input, [PwC is] projecting the medical cost trend in 2026 to remain at 8.5% for the Group market and 7.5% for the Individual market, the same levels as 2025. Pharmacy cost trend was 2.5 points higher than medical trend, reinforcing the urgency of managing pharma care."

Medical Cost Trend: Behind the Numbers 2025

"Commercial health care spending is estimated to grow to its highest level in 13 years ... PwC’s Health Research Institute (HRI) is projecting an 8% year-on-year medical cost trend in 2025 for the Group market and 7.5% for the Individual market. This near-record trend is driven by inflationary pressure, prescription drug spending and behavioral health utilization."

Sharp Increase Predicted for Healthcare Costs

"A recent PwC report expects costs to rise by 4% to 10% in 2021, a sharp increase from recent years. The survey points to mental health utilization and specialty drugs as two big drivers. It also alludes to provider utilization as pent-up demand, in part fueled by cash-strapped providers who suffered financially from deferment of non-COVID-19 care during the height of the crisis. PwC indicates the permanency of telemedicine and the willingness of employers to move to narrowing network choices as an offsetting cost mitigation. And it is time for the insurance plans to pay the piper for COVID-19 treatment."

Medical Cost Trend: Behind the Numbers 2020 (PDF)

"PwC's Health Research Institute (HRI) projects a 6 percent medical cost trend in 2020, a slight uptick over the past two years. After figuring in health plan changes, such as increased employee cost sharing and network and benefit changes, HRI projects a net growth rate of 5 percent.... Between 2020 and 2027, retail drug spending under private health insurance is projected to increase at a rate of 3 percent to 6 percent a year ... Obesity and Type 2 diabetes continue to produce high rates of hypertension and cardiovascular disease.... Nearly 75 percent of employers offer mental health disease management programs. Anytime access is expanded, costs will go up in the short term."

Multinationals Close the Door on DB Plans as Deficits Become Unmanageable

"The death of defined benefit (DB) pension arrangements has become a global phenomenon with employers grappling with what to replace it with ... PwC surveyed 114 Fortune 500 global multinationals, which together employ 4.7 million people and have combined pension liabilities of $950 billion, and found that only 6% wish to perpetuate DB arrangements, where the employer underwrites the costs and risks of providing workers with guaranteed pension incomes. Nine in ten are actively deploying defined contribution (DC) as their predominant workplace retirement provision, with the commensurate transfer in cost and risk from employer to employees."