S&P Implies Hospital Pensions Are Not a Problem -- I'll Be the Judge

I read two excellent articles on the same topic recently. Both Rebecca Moore for Plan Sponsor and Jack O'Brien for Health Leaders Media wrote about an S&P study that implied that pensions are not a problem for not-for-profit hospitals in the US. I found the different perspectives interesting as Rebecca is a retirement plan journalist who was covering a hospital retirement issue while Jack is a hospital journalist who was covering a retirement issue with regard to hospitals.

In summary, here is what I learned:

• The U.S. not-for-profit health care sector has benefited from an increase in the median funded status of its pension plans in fiscal 2018—increasing from 80.6% to 85%, according to S&P Global Ratings;
• S&P measures the underlying pension liabilities using a "conservative municipal bond rate;"
• S&P applauded that many hospitals have focused on de-risking liabilities;
• S&P views the following as positive with respect to hospital pensions:
• Full funded status;
• Any sort of de-risking; and 
• No pension plan at all.

I'm not going to spend a lot of time dissecting what S&P thinks is good. As a firm, they employ many excellent economists while my formal economic training is quite sparse. But, I'd be remiss if I did not comment on the use of municipal bond rates. While they are not far from the measures typically used for corporate pension plans, I'm not sure how movement in yields on municipal bonds should affect the measurement of obligations in hospital pensions.

Let's return to the initial premise that being that hospital pensions are well-managed (I said not a problem in my title, but the words that were actually used were well-managed). Are they? Is 85% a good funded status? Are the hospitals managing frictional overhead costs? Is de-risking the right approach for a plan that is 85% funded? If so, which type(s) of de-risking should they be using?

While it's not the case for all of them, the majority of hospital pension plans are either [hard] frozen or they are soft frozen (no new entrants). This implies that the goal is to eventually terminate those plans. A plan that is 85% funded cannot be terminated. In fact, generally speaking, a plan that is 100% funded on the basis that S&P uses cannot be terminated (annuities have some level of built-in costs as compared to a traditional actuarial measurement of pension obligations). 

Getting from 85% funded to just a bit more than 100% funded is a tall task. There are a number of ways to make progress on this, some passive and some active. They include watching discount rates increase, investing more aggressively (and hoping that produces better returns), contributing more money to the plan, and cutting the overhead costs of the plan.

Let's attack those in order.

Unless a hospital has more control over the economy than I think it does, it cannot affect the yields on municipal bonds.

Investing more aggressively works well when it works well meaning that if you can beat your bogie, you improve your funded status and get closer to being able to terminate the plan.

Contributing more money to a plan is an easy concept. All it requires is having money to contribute. In 2019, hospitals, generally speaking, don't seem to have that kind of money laying around. On the other hand, hospitals do have lots of assets many of them not pulling as much weight as they might were they re-deployed into the hospital pension plan. I have some ideas in this vein, and would be happy to tell you about them.

Finally, for the last three years, October Three has published a report on PBGC premiums. The report has found that hospitals, compared to any other industry, are consistently paying more in needless PBGC premiums than any other industry. In other words, there are techniques available to them to lower those premiums that as a group, they are not using.

So, with all due respect to S&P, the judge has ruled. Hospital pension are a problem and generally speaking, hospitals are not managing those pensions well. The judge thinks those hospitals should contact him.

How Big Does Your ROI Have to Be? You Can Get It Here

Let's make believe it's 2018. Let's further make believe that the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) or whatever it's long-winded name turned out to be was signed into law late last year. And, let's finally make believe that you hold a corporate position where you get to weigh in on corporate investments and deployment of capital.

Just how big of a return on investment do you need to be able to project in order to pull the trigger?

8%? 10%? 12%? 15%?

For most of you, I'm guessing that I've finally surpassed or at least hit your target. You'll definitely want to read on. For those that need a bigger number, give me a chance. But, I didn't want to scare away those people who think that really big numbers are only found in Fantasyland.

For those of you that really want to get into the technical details, I'm going to refer you to an excellent piece written by my Partner, Brian Donohue. Some of you may not want to get into that level of gory detail and you just want the big picture and a summary to convince you, you've come to the right place.

First off, you need to sponsor a defined benefit (DB) pension plan. It's fine if it's of the cash balance or some other hybrid variety. So, let's suppose that you do because if you don't and you have no plans to, unless you just really love my writing or just have a strange desire to find out what you are missing out on, you can probably stop reading now.

I don't want to put this in terms of dollars because if I talk about billions and you are a $100 million company, you may not think this is for you. And, conversely, if I talk about millions and you think millions go away in rounding, you won't think it's for you. So, let's talk about units.

Suppose your DB plan is fully funded on a Schedule SB basis. In other words, your funding target and your actuarial value of assets both equal 1000. Then your minimum required contribution, generally speaking, is equal to your target normal cost, probably not a big number compared to what we are talking about here.

Despite not having to, contribute 200 units. Go ahead. Do it. Trust me. I wouldn't sell you snake oil.

Here are your benefits from having done so before September 15, 2018 (assuming calendar year plan year and tax year):

• The 200 units are tax-deductible under Code Section 404 for 2017 when your corporate marginal tax rate was likely 35% (yes, there are unusual circumstances where they may not be or where the deductions may not be of value to you, but for most sponsors, this is the case) as compared to 21% beginning in 2018. Savings of 14% of 200=28 units.
• Your PBGC variable rate premiums may come down by as much as 8 units, But that could be as much as 8 units per year for multiple years (let's call it 5 years for sake of argument). Savings of 8 units times 5 years=40 units.

That's 68 units of savings on a 200 unit deployment of cash. That's 34%.

Now, I'm not going to claim that your ROI here is actually 34%. Yes, you will contribute these amounts more than likely in future years and when you do, you will take a tax deduction. But, you'll take it in the future (you remember time value of money) and you'll only get a 21% deduction when you do. And, yes, you may not get those full PBGC savings and some of them will be in the future, but your savings are likely to be significant.

And, then there is the other really key benefit -- your plan will now have a surplus on a funding basis meaning that you almost certainly don't have to contribute and deal with volatility of minimum required contributions in the near future.

I'd be doing you a disservice, of course, if I didn't give fair consideration to the downsides and perceived downsides of this strategy. So, I'm going to shoot straight with you.

Yes, you will have 200 units of cash tied up with no immediate means of accessing it. However, it's getting you a pretty good and rapid ROI, so in most cases, I think you'll get over that one.

Pension surplus is considered to be a bad thing. In fact, prevailing wisdom is that pension surplus is worth only pennies on the dollar. Well, sometimes prevailing wisdom shouldn't prevail.

If your DB plan is ongoing, this is just advance funding, plain and simple. It's money that you would have to contribute and the future when you could take your deductions at a 21% marginal tax rate.

If your DB plan is frozen, the argument is a little trickier. But, for most sponsors, if you do have a frozen plan, the cost to terminate is likely going to exceed your funding target. In fact, it's likely to exceed your funding target by a fair amount. So, those 200 units will be put to use.

But, let's take the extreme scenario where your investments do well, interest rates rise, and those 200 units really start to look like trapped surplus. 

Do you sponsor a defined contribution (DC) plan? It may not fit your current DC strategy, but generally speaking, your DB surplus upon termination can be used to fund a "qualified replacement plan" (think profit sharing or non-elective contributions) for up to seven years. So, in that case, you would be getting an advance deduction for future DC contributions.

Convinced this is worth looking into?

Yes, I've simplified things and there are potential tax and legal issues here, so I leave you with this:

Nothing in here should be construed as tax or legal advice which can only be obtained from a qualified tax or legal professional. If you need tax or legal advice, you should consult such a professional. And as with any strategy of this sort, your mileage may vary.

HR Practices and Their Funding Similar Within Industries

This shouldn't come as a revelation, but HR practices, particularly benefits and compensation tend to be similar within industries. It makes sense. They tend to be competing for the same talent and, therefore, they benchmark against each other.

What may be a little bit less obvious is that allocations of capital to benefits and compensation also tend to follow patterns within industries. Reasons for this may not be quire as clear, but in a lot of cases, if what you are providing is the same, the way you pay for it and the amount that you pay for it may also be pretty similar.

Again, it makes sense. If Company A pays me $50,000 per year or Company B pays me $50,000 per year, the cost of my cash compensation during that year will be $50,000 (ignoring taxes). If each company further offers me a 401(k) plan that matches 50 cents on the dollar up to 6% of pay and very similar health plans, their costs for the year for me remain pretty similar. There aren't a whole lot of choices there.

So, now you may be asking why I am writing this. I haven't told you anything useful yet and you may be thinking I won't. But, wait, there's more!

Certain rewards elements can be paid for differently. Primarily, those are incentive compensation (can be paid relatively immediately or deferred) and defined benefit (including cash balance) pension plans. There you as an employer have options.

Let's consider briefly some of what those might be. You can fund the minimum required contribution (MRC) exactly on the statutory schedule. It's easy. You follow the rules. You do no more and you do no less. You can fund to the greater of the MRC or to 80% on whatever is the current funding basis. You can fund to the greater of the MRC or to 90% on that same current funding basis. Or 100%. Or, you can fund to the point at which you eliminate PBGC variable rate premiums.

Sure, there are other levels to which you can fund, but that's enough to illustrate. The point here is that behaviors within industries tend to be pretty similar.

Why does that matter?

Let's consider the health care industry. Not insurers, but hospitals, clinics, and other similar organizations. Lots of them have pension plans of one flavor or another (many are frozen cash balance plans) and most of them fund those at the minimum on the statutory schedule. That is following the law, so from a compliance standpoint, it's fine.

Where it's not as fine is from a financial sense standpoint.

Suppose you looked at all of the companies that sponsor defined benefit plans and then among that group, you considered only those who are paying more in PBGC variable rate premiums than they need to (this is important because for a typical company like this, those variable rate premiums may represent a 1% or more "drag" on plan assets).

What industry would predominate in that group?

You guessed it -- health care.

If you've made it this far and you are in the health care industry and you still have a pension plan, you probably want to see if you are facing that drag on assets. You probably are.

I would encourage you to check and when you find out that you are experiencing that drag, there are strategies that can be employed that will save you on that drag without depleting valuable cash from other needs.

Overpaying PBGC Premiums -- Money You'll Never See Again

Earlier this week, October Three released what may have been the most comprehensive study ever on payment of PBGC premiums. The study analyzed premium payments of nearly every mid-sized or large defined benefit plan in the country over the period from plan years 2010 through 2015 (leaving out plans with fewer than 250 participants).

The key results were shocking:

• During that six-year period, companies overpaid variable rate premiums by more than $700 million in the aggregate. That is, using techniques designed to lessen variable rate premiums, they could have paid $700 million less.
• For the 2015 plan year, more than 65% of plans that paid variable rate premiums, and did not have their premiums limited by the so-called per participant cap, paid more than they needed to.

If we think about this particular pension expenditure, one could consider it among the worst of all sins. For example, if you contributed more than you needed to in 2015, then your future required contributions will be lower, your PBGC premiums may have been lower and your pension expense will have been lower. So, while you may have had other uses for the money, at least you got some benefit from those contributions.

On the other hand, suppose you paid a larger variable rate premium than you needed to. What benefit have you gotten or will you have gotten from that overpayment? Zero. Zilch. Nada. Nihil. Niets. Niente. Rien. They're all the same. You will have received absolutely no benefit from your overpayment and neither will your employees. In fact, the only beneficiary of your overpayment will have been the PBGC.

Don't get me wrong. There are some good people, some nice people at the PBGC. I have friends at the PBGC. But, that said, there is no reason to give them more money than you need to under the law.

If you've made it this far, I'm going to leave you with an analogy. PBGC premiums are a lot like taxes. You pay money to a quasi-governmental corporation (PBGC) as a condition of sponsoring a defined benefit plan. Similarly, you pay taxes to the federal government when your company turns a profit.

Here is where they diverge. Your company probably has a Tax Department. If it does, its primary function is to ensure that your company properly pays its taxes, but in as small amount as legally allowable. That is, their job is to reduce your tax burden.

Your Tax Department may be pretty big. How big is your PBGC Premium Department? Oh, you don't have a PBGC Premium Department? You know you could.