PLAN SPONSOR SERVICES
PLAN DESIGN
Public sector employers have traditionally invested heavily in retirement plans to attract and retain a high-quality and stable work force. Yet today's difficult economy and volatile financial markets demand careful planning and creativity to ensure that the design of defined benefit (DB), defined contribution (DC) or hybrid plans, as well as other retirement income programs, will meet the goals and needs of plan participants over the long term. We approach a retirement plan design project — whether for DB, DC or hybrid plans — through a comprehensive process that involves the following steps:
- Gathering essential facts about current plans and member demographics
- Creating retirement objectives and philosophy
- Analyzing the gap between the current state of the retirement plan and the objectives
- Creating alternative design options to close the gap
- Narrowing options to the "short list"
- Conducting a demographic and financial analysis of the options
- Modifying the options to balance demographic and financial objectives
- Creating the pilot transition design and performing the final gap analysis
- Implementing the new plan design
At each step of the process, our retirement plan design consultants translate complex ideas into clear illustrations so that you don't have to become an actuary yourself to understand our recommendations and their practical implications.
