DB Insight
RFPs: Reframing For Productivity
Unlocking the Power of Unconventional Thinking in Your Next RFP. Most pension plan sponsors engage in a “request for proposal” (RFP) process on a periodic schedule to fulfill their fiduciary obligations. Importantly, the RFP process helps to gauge the value of provider services to the plan and the reasonableness of those associated fees. Very likely,…
Read MoreMillennials Investing in a New(er) Millennia
Gone are the days of calling a stockbroker to hear the latest picks to then place a trade with a $50 commission for a mutual fund with a 2% expense ratio. Today, the average American 20-something with a phone and a brokerage account can place a zero-commission trade for any security on an exchange in…
Read MoreAm I a Plan Fiduciary? What Does That Mean?
If your job responsibilities include involvement with an employee benefit plan, you may be a fiduciary, and so might be others who help manage the plan or its assets. Given that, it is important to know what a fiduciary is, who is deemed to be a fiduciary, and what their responsibilities are under ERISA. The…
Read MoreDe-Risking Your Pension Plan: Is It Time to Assemble Your Team?
In 2022, MetLife commissioned a survey of 251 defined benefit (DB) plan sponsors and learned that 9 in 10 are considering a pension risk transfer (PRT), or a de-risking of their pension plan in the next 5 years.[i] Whether by lump-sum payouts to pension participants or through group annuity contracts with insurers, plan sponsors are…
Read MoreThrowing Darts in the Dark: Reasons to Review Your DB Plan Glide Path
For an employer, the ultimate goal of a defined benefit (DB) plan is to provide the retirement benefits promised to retirees. To accomplish this goal of funding those benefits and the related costs of providing them, an investment portfolio must generate sufficient returns—or a targeted rate of return (ROR). Asset allocation, or the practice of…
Read MoreGlide Path 2023: Do Headwinds Require a Change in the Plan?
The headwinds (and headlines) of 2022 included this: 2022 was a year of volatility and concern over the prospects of a recession in 2023. However, for many defined benefit plans, those headwinds were favorable in the way they affected plan funded status, or the measure of plan assets to meet future obligations. Funded status is…
Read MoreThe Power of the PENsion: LDI in 2023 – Batten Down the Hatches
As we look back on the economic volatility of 2022 and face a possible recession in 2023, pension plan sponsors could be unnerved. Consider where we find ourselves at the close of 2022: Add to these dreary measures: It’s been a difficult year, and we’ve few reasons to expect smooth sailing in 2023. But the…
Read MoreThe Power of the PENsion: Where There’s a Window – Pension Plan Sponsors Moving to Act Before a De-Risking Window Closes
The equity and bond markets’ fall in recent months has captured the headlines and attention of anyone invested in a retirement plan. But as the rising rate environment has shaken the markets, it has helped improve the funding status of some pension plans and may have opened a window of opportunity for defined benefit (DB)…
Read MoreGilt Trip: What Plan Sponsors Can Learn from the U.K. Pension Fund Crisis
Pension plan sponsors across the United Kingdom endured a harrowing week in late September as an unexpected spike in long gilt (or U.K. government bond) yields exposed their levered hedging programs to the brink of insolvency. Some sponsors went to bed feeling secure about their diversified plans (with seemingly prudent hedges) and woke the next…
Read MoreThe Power of the PENsion: What is OCIO? A Discussion of Advisory Relationships
OCIO, CEO, E-I-E-I-O: Is OCIO just another abbreviation to remember? For those in need of investment management, this is one you don’t want to forget. The term OCIO, or Outsourced Chief Investment Officer, originated in the 1970s and was designed to add the responsibility of asset management to the duties of the traditional investment consultant….
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