Industry News

On January 22, 2019, the Society of Actuaries (SOA) published its report, Pub-2010 Public Retirement Plans Mortality Tables.  This report was published in conjunction with the new set of mortality tables for U.S. public pension plans released in late August 2018, the Pub-2010 Mortality Tables. The new tables include the individual mortality experience for teachers, public safety professionals and general employees. This is the first time the SOA has studied public retirement plan mortality separately from the private sector.

The Pub-2010 Public Retirement Plans Mortality Tables include 46 million life-years of exposure data and 580,000 deaths from 78 public pension plans and 35 public pension systems in the U.S. The analysis indicates that teachers have the longest age-65 life expectancy of the job categories studied. In addition, the report suggests that higher income is correlated with lower mortality, since income was the most statistically significant mortality factor across all job categories.

According to the SOA, the financial impact of implementing the new mortality tables will vary based on each individual job category as well as members’ ages and other demographics in each pension plan. The SOA cautions that plan sponsors should work with their plan actuaries to understand the impact of the tables on their pension plan to determine how to incorporate emerging mortality and mortality improvement into their plan’s actuarial valuations.

In August 2018, the Society of Actuaries’ Retirement Plans Experience Committee (RPEC) released an exposure draft report of the Pub-2010 Public Retirement Plans Mortality Tables and comments were due by October 31, 2018.

David Kausch, Chief Actuary for GRS, served as the chair of the Public Plans Subcommittee which developed these tables.

Additional information is available here.