Employers that reduce the risks associated with offering pension plans now face a new reporting requirement: disclosing basic information about the transactions to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. as part of paying their annual premium to the federal agency.

The risk-transfer disclosure requirement, which the PBGC disclosed Monday has been approved by the Office of Management and Budget, will affect 2015 premium filings, which for most employers are due Oct. 15.

In cases when employers offer to convert plan participants' monthly annuity to a cash lump sum, employers will have to answer four questions: how many plan participants not in pay status, such as retirees, were offered the option and how many took it. The same questions for employees in pay status also will have to be answered.

In cases when employers buy a group annuity from an insurer and the insurer then provides the pension benefits to participants, the employer will have to report how many participants were in pay status and how many were not when the annuity was purchased.

However, employers can disregard annuity purchases and lump sum benefit offers made less than 60 days before the PBGC premium filing was made.

The answers to the PBGC questions relate to lump sum offers and annuity purchases that occurred in 2014 and those in 2015 that occurred 60 days prior to when plan sponsors made their PBGC premium payments.

The new requirement to file the risk-transfer information comes amid a surge of employers over the last few years who have engaged in such transactions.

The potential effect of such transactions on the PBGC's premium base was the driving force behind the move to obtain risk-transfer information.

Risk transfers “deserve PBGC's attention because, among other things, they lower the participant count and reduce premium income,” the agency earlier said in a filing with OMB. “Premium losses have the potential to degrade PBGC's ability to carry out its mandate” to guarantee benefits.