The overall solvency position improved slightly for federally registered pension plans in 2016 compared to 2015, but the majority of funds remained slightly underfunded on a termination basis, according to the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions’ 2016/17 annual report. The report found that, at Dec. 31, 2016, 80 per cent of the defined […]
The Netherlands has long had a reputation for having a strong two-pillar retirement system that provides retirees with an income replacement rate of at least 80 per cent from the country’s national and occupational pension schemes. And until relatively recently, Dutch workers were equally as confident about their occupational plans as they were about the […]
Defined contribution plan administrators that want to boost members’ financial behaviour should follow the lead of superstitious sports stars by embracing the surprising power of rituals, according to a Toronto management consultant. Kelly Peters, chief executive officer of BEworks Inc., told attendees at the Benefits Canada’s Defined Contribution Investment Forum in Toronto on Friday that it’s […]
Retirement savings products once again led the way in the growth of the life and health insurance industry, according to the Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association’s annual fact book. Of the $631 billion in employer-sponsored pension plans, the industry managed $142 billion in 2016, up from $131 billion in 2015. And life insurers paid […]
Brink’s Canada Ltd. employees are pushing back again the company’s proposal to move them from a defined benefit pension into a defined contribution plan. The pension change is one of the central issues prompting members of Unifor to vote overwhelmingly to strike. In Ontario, 800 union members have voted 98 per cent in favour of […]
Two-thirds of households are setting aside money for retirement, taking advantage of either a registered pension plan, a registered retirement savings plan or a tax-free savings account, Statistics Canada said Wednesday as it released the latest batch of numbers from the 2016 census. Of 14 million households, 65.2 per cent made a contribution in 2015 […]
Mercer is introducing outsourced governance for employers with defined contribution pension plans. The offering, Mercer Future Wise, will delegate employers’ plan governance to a team at Mercer, providing access to investment managers, competitive fees and governance and oversight, according to a press release. It will also provide employers with insight into their plan members’ engagement […]
While defined contribution plans were a small piece of the pension market when Benefits Canada first rolled off the presses in 1977, the Co-operative Superannuation Society had already been operating for almost 40 years by that point. Founded in 1939 in Saskatoon, the society’s pension plan is one of the country’s oldest and largest defined […]
Back in the 1990s, senior management at the Co-operators Group Ltd. decided to be more generous with its defined contribution pension plan. While most Canadian companies with defined contribution offerings match employee contributions — often up to five per cent of salary — the Co-operators upped its plan on both sides of the equation by […]
Despite British Columbia’s introduction of provisions for target-benefit pension plans in 2015, a report from the province’s regulator suggests the option has seen a slow uptake. Only 30 pension plans with target-benefit components were registered as of Dec. 31, 2016, according to a report released by the Financial Institutions Commission of British Columbia on Wednesday. Many of […]