作为保险飙升，美国的养老金旨在转移风险

Retirement plan sponsors are no strangers to new costs, but one expense is rapidly moving up their list of concerns. As many as two thirds of U.S. corporate pensions may change their plan policies in response to recentinsurancerate hikes, according to a recent client poll by NEPC, a Boston-based independent investment consultant.

The Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 will raise养老金福利担保公司premiums significantly, boosting the federal agency’s annual fixed rates from $64 to $80 per participant by 2019. The extra fees will add up: With plan sponsors struggling to meet funding goals thanks to low interest rates and tepid economic growth, the PBGC is projected to gather an additional $4 billion through 2025 off the latest hikes.

For pension sponsors, possible changes to offset these costs include higher contributions (32 percent of respondents to the NEPC poll), lump-sum payouts to shift people off a plan (32 percent) and risk transfers to insurance annuities to shrink the number of pensioners in a plan (17 percent).

“This is essentially another nail in the coffin for defined benefit plans,” says Brad Smith, a partner at the Atlanta office of NEPC, whose corporate retirement group advises 107 clients with a total of some $240 billion in assets under administration. Smith expects risk transfer strategies to multiply as more defined benefit pensions close to new participants and it grows more expensive for sponsors to support pensioners in those plans.

PBGC premiums didn’t use to factor much into the cost considerations of plan sponsors, but those fees have risen dramatically in recent years. The PBGC was created in 1974 as a government-backed insurer that draws on premium payments to cover promised benefits if an employer fails. The rate for sponsors is based on the total number of people on pension plans and the overall liability that would have to be paid out in the event of failure.

Since 1980 insurance premiums have been included in the federal budgeting process as government revenue, so Washington gets to double count this money. The payments go directly to the PBGC and sit in a fund for future claims, but the government now treats them as revenue too. As a result, premium hikes routinely show up in budget packages as a revenue offset for spending items like transportation or infrastructure; they’ve increased in size as spending has tightened over the past decade.

至少可以在视线中救济，至少对于一个公司养老金的一个子集。在2月份发布的2017年巴拉克奥巴马总统的预算提案中，白宫推荐for the first time that premiums on single-employer plans stay where they are or risk becoming counterproductive. But Congress would have to approve such a measure; until then plan sponsors must assume that more rate hikes lie ahead, prompting them to consider ideas like risk transfers to cut down on premiums.

“现在许多所定义的福利计划被冻结或关闭，由于参与者的溢价，有一大即步的养老金领取者池，”威利斯塔尔·沃特森（Gillas Towers Watson）的达拉斯高级退休顾问，全球投资，Alan Glickstein解释说咨询公司。Glickstein表示，他谈到的计划赞助商正在寻找更多转让负债的方法。

去年12月PBGC发布了第一次研究养老金计划的风险转移事件：在调查中的3,600个计划中，2009年 - 13年调查期内有500多个风险转让。那些动作意味着超过100万退休人员丧失养老金福利，并获得了一笔金额支付或被移到保险年度。该数字可能随着最新一轮的高级徒步旅行而增加。

当定义的福利养老金计划转移风险时会发生什么？在最佳案例中，养老金领取者将投入保险年金，以稳定的月收入提供养老金福利。退休人员必须找到自己的选择，以便如何管理该货币，通常没有明确的达到稳定收入的明确路径。个人可以选择进入一个401(k) planor work with a financial adviser, but these solutions are often at the mercy of market movements and personal discipline.

“The financial crisis of 2008 showed us some of the weakness of having everyone rely on a 401(k) when those balances can literally disappear in one day,” Glickstein says. “Historically, 401(k)s were considered supplemental savings. Now they are being treated as a core option, but all they really do is serve as a vehicle for capital accumulation, not a lifetime income.”

Worries over premiums and liabilities are also driving small businesses to consider cash balance plans instead of a defined benefit plan or a 401(k). Cash balance plans behave somewhat like a traditional defined benefit pension by promising employees a certain return on contributions while also giving employers more options about how they handle those who change jobs.

“One of the big costs for defined benefit plans are people who haven’t retired but are fully vested and no longer work at the employer-sponsor,” explains Meghan Elwell, director of strategy development at Sage Advisory, an Austin, Texas–based asset manager that specializes in cash balance plans. “With a cash balance plan, if someone leaves, the employer can fully end that relationship and just give them the balance of their account, which reduces the long-term liability.”

无论计划如何提出挑选选项，不要期望很快就会在界定的福利计划中进行复兴。实际上，这意味着个人的退休性不安全。“讽刺意味着，通过提高保费的PBGC最终会赚取较少的资金，以支付未来的索赔，”威利斯塔沃森的Glickstein说。•