PENSION PLAN

We created Know Your Pension in 2004 to help you understand your pension plan, so you can ensure that your retirement nest egg is safe.

We all work very hard to have a financially secure retirement. Most of us are counting on our pension plans to be there when we finally get to kick off our boots for good. But too often today, pension plans are under funded. People retire, and the money they thought would be there for them simply isn´t.

In recent years, pension problems have grown much worse throughout the country. The stock market crash in 2001 caused many pensions to be severely under funded. But many plans were already in trouble before the crash.

With Delta Airlines, the nation’s third largest carrier, currently in bankruptcy proceedings, it has notified the federal government’s pension insurer of its intention to terminate its pilots’ pension plan.

At General Motors, the largest provider of health care in the United States, nearly a third of its hourly workforce has signed up for payout packages to help the company cut costs.  And auto parts supplier Delphi's bankruptcy raises real concerns for the pensions of its union employees, with some 12,000 workers opting for early retirement or buyout attrition plans. 

“Structural problems in industries like airlines, steel and auto parts have led to large bankrupt firms terminating their DB plans, with thousands of workers losing some of their benefits and saddling the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) with billions of dollars in unfunded benefit guarantees,” wrote an October, 2005 report from the Government Accountability Office. What do these and other recent developments mean for your own retirement plans?

So we created this web site for you. Think of it as a tool you can use to stay on top of your pension, and make sure that the money that is owed to you will be there when you retire. Take a look around, and don′t hesitate to contact us if you have any questions or recommendations.

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We are often asked the same urgent question: How can I determine whether my pension plan is in trouble? 

So we developed this system to evaluate the financial health of many of the nation’s largest private pension plans – and hopefully yours. 

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Retirement plans are frequently classified as defined benefit or defined contribution according to how the benefits are determined. A defined benefit plan guarantees a certain payout after retirement, according to a fixed formula which usually depends on the member's salary and the number of years' membership of the plan.

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