Pension news roundup: PBGC, CalSavers, GE, Milliman

Who said the world of pensions was dry and boring? In a move that recalls the 1980s movie “Weekend at Bernie’s,” a man in Ireland reportedly showed up at the local pension office to collect another man’s pension payment. When told that the pensioner had to be present to disburse funds, the man and another man returned to the office, propping up the body of the deceased pensioner between them. The two men fled when officials called the police, according to the Guardian. Below is more staid news appropriate to the pension world:

PBGC announces first plan to receive SFA program funds

The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation announced that $112.6 million has been paid in special financial assistance to the Local 138 Pension Plan, a financially troubled multiemployer pension plan based in Baldwin, N.Y. The Local 138 Plan, covering 1,723 participants in the transportation industry, is the first plan to receive funds under the Special Financial Assistance Program, enacted as part of the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. The plan had been projected to run out of money early this year.

PBGC’s Missing Participants Program missing a couple other things

The Pension Benefits Guaranty Corp. is unable to measure the success of a program designed to hold retirement benefits for missing participants and beneficiaries in terminated retirement plans, BenefitsPRO reports. PBGC’s inspector general said, “We found that the Corporation does not have performance measures for the program. Furthermore, PBGC does not track the ongoing universe of missing participants.”

Whistleblower protections introduced for Ontario pensions

Those who report suspected violations of Ontario pension law would qualify for whistleblower protection, under legislation introduced in December. Although other financial services sectors in Canada already have whistleblower protection, this is the first for Canada’s regulated pension sector, reports the Osler Pension and Benefits Law Blog. Will it result in more investigations by regulators?

GE freezing pensions

GE announced it is freezing the accrual of pension benefits for approximately 800 employees in its non-union defined benefit pension plans in Canada, effective December 31, 2023. The freeze does not impact GE retirees already collecting pension benefits or active employees covered by collective bargaining agreements. Employees whose benefits will be frozen as of December 31, 2023 will not accrue additional pension service credit or make employee contributions to the current plans after that date. GE’s pension benefit obligation in Canada was approximately $2B CAD at the end of 2021. In recent years, GE has frozen its U.S. GE Pension Plan (GEPP) and U.S. Supplementary Pension (SPP) for salaried participants, as well as the U.K. GE Pension Plans.

CalSavers to impose penalties for non-compliant employers

California’s Calsavers Retirement Savings program is urging employers that do not offer a private retirement plan and who have more than 100 employees to register for the CalSavers program before penalties are imposed this month. CalSavers has created portable accounts for workers, with no employer fees, and no employer contributions, and employers must make the program available to their employees. Mandated employers must register for CalSavers at www.calsavers.com before their applicable deadline or face potential financial penalties. The deadline for businesses with more than 50 employees has passed and noncompliance penalties for this group are slated for mid-2022. The deadline for employers with five or more employees is June 30, 2022.

Milliman says funded status of public pensions is up

Milliman released the Q4 2021 results of its Public Pension Funding Index (PPFI), which consists of the nation’s 100 largest public defined benefit pension plans. Among other things it reports, “Public pensions closed out 2021 with a funded status of 85.5%, up from 83.9% in Q3 and the highest recorded funded status since Milliman began tracking the PPFI in 2016.”

Milliman also recently announced the latest results of its Milliman Pension Buyout Index (MPBI), reporting, “During December, the estimated cost to transfer retiree pension risk to an insurer in a competitive bidding process decreased from 99.9% of a plan’s total liabilities to 99.3% of those liabilities. 2021 ended with some of the lowest competitive buyout costs we’ve seen in the history of our study.”