are these pensions insured ? Legally, can the management raid the Pension fund and use it when debt rises every quarter ?
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Anonymous | Post ID: @EtoRyfc-diot ,
The operative phrase in your comment would be "... a well funded pension...". The question to ponder is, will the pension fund remain well funded through your retirement years? There are examples recently in the news where pension funds were sufficiently funded in the past but have become so less so as to require reorganization. one example would be Central States Pension Fund, I believe connected with the Teamsters Union, which recently announced severe cuts to some pensioners. (Yes, I know, that is not a single company pension fund but it is still an under funded plan that is reorganizing.)
A lump sum on a well funded pension is horrible financial management. No financial environment other than imminent death financially justifies cashing out a pension.
That'why i took the lump sum 6 years ago. It's in the bank...well it's gone up 200,000 since then...
I would expect Pension plan will be stopped soon and will come up with alternative plan.
there will not be new money added to the cop fund. Whatever current members will get disbursements that is accumulated till now.
Anonymous202532, Per the Dept of Labor ( http://www.dol.gov/ebsa/faqs/faq_consumer_pension.html ) ,,, in most situations, if a company terminates a defined benefit plan that does not have enough funding to pay all of the promised benefits, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) will pay plan participants and beneficiaries some retirement benefits, but possibly less than the level of benefits promised.... Again, if things get ugly enough on a large enough scale, PBGC itself could be (likely will be) severely under funded. Not to incite panic, but, keep yourself informed.
The erisa rules protect our pension
"Right now" key words only covers 80% of pensions .... Right now! Just wait till oil stays below 45 for another 4 months and then it will be 60% or 40% that pensions are covered.
Anonymous200915, Pension Liabilities are pension payouts,eg. anticipated retirements. So right now 80% or so of the pensions anticipated can be covered by the fund.
Yes..PBGC is supposed to be a hedge against bankruptcies.. I know for airlines the pensions were cut or reduced.. Not sure if PBGC took of the Airlines pension funds ..
Anyone know if pension plan funding amounts or % are obtainable more frequently than annually? Companies are required to report annually as a minimum, but I'd like to know more frequently, at least quarterly. As we all know, a lot can happen to a company's financial condition in a year.
Also, I believe the entity alluded to below is the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC). PBGC is not in stellar financial shape itself. if you had the unlucky occasion to have your employer's plan go belly up when many other companies' plans did as well, it's anyone's guess as to whether or not our government would step in and honor those commitments dollar for dollar.
Good luck to all of you
Thanks for the stat info .. Trying to understand what pension liability means...how do a pension plan has liability ?
I thought they add to pension fund every year .. do you know where do the pension liabilities coming from ?
Do you consider the $400 million office building purchase and COP stock a good investment for the pension?
For what it is worth, the information quoted is positive information for the pensions. ConocoPhillips Co., Houston, expects to contribute $560 million to its worldwide defined benefit pension plans in 2014 — $350 million to U.S. plans and $210 million to international plans, according to its Feb. 25 filing.
The U.S. pension plans ended the year with $3.09 billion in assets and $3.95 billion in liabilities for a funded status of 78.2%, up from 64.5% a year earlier. The international plans ended the year with $3.13 billion in assets and $3.58 billion in liabilities for a funded status of 87.4%, up from 80.2% at the end of 2012.
The discount rate used to measure benefit obligations was 4.4% for the U.S. plans, up from 3.55% at the end of 2012.
That is good to know.. Thanks ..
I asked this question once to a seasoned individual and that person answered that it would be totally illegal and that they are protected by an entity I can't remember right now what it's called. I then followed up with another question, does the company reserve the right to change, amend, reduce, you get the picture. That person responded with it may be possible to amend, change, but maybe not reduce, severances on the other hand most definatly can be reduced. That being said to all those 55 and above with nice pensions you may be faced with a reduced severance, but will walk away with your great pensions.