Help

BI’s Article search uses Boolean search capabilities. If you are not familiar with these principles, here are some quick tips.

To search specifically for more than one word, put the search term in quotation marks. For example, “workers compensation”. This will limit your search to that combination of words.

To search for a combination of terms, use quotations and the & symbol. For example, “hurricane” & “loss”.

Login Register Subscribe

Funding of large public firms' pension plans dropped in January: Survey

Reprints
Funding of large public firms' pension plans dropped in January: Survey

Hammered by falling interest rates and a drop in the equities market, the funding levels of pension plans sponsored by large publicly held U.S. employers slid in January, according to a survey released Friday by Milliman Inc.

Defined benefit plans offered by the 100 U.S. employers with the largest pension programs were an average of 91.2% funded in January, down sharply from 95.2% funded in December and 93.9% funded in November, the survey found.

“After a win-win year that combined market growth and cooperative interest rates, we're back to the lose-lose ways where assets fall and liabilities increase,” John Ehrhardt, a Milliman principal and consulting actuary in New York, said in a statement.

January's dip followed a year of significant improvement in plan funding. During 2013, the plans' funded ratio jumped to 95.2% from 77.2%, while plan underfunding dipped to $72.87 billion from $390.70 billion. That roughly $318 billion improvement in plan funding was the biggest one-year gain in the 13 years Milliman has been conducting its analysis, the consulting firm said in its statement.

“Hopefully this is just a speed bump on the way to 100% funded status,” Mr. Ehrhardt added.

At the end of January, surveyed plans had $1.443 trillion in assets and $1.583 trillion in liabilities for a funding shortfall of $140 billion. That compares with a funding deficit of $73 billion in December, when the plans had $1.450 trillion in assets and $1.523 trillion in liabilities.