Are You Missing Out Because Your Company Uses an actuary not an ACTUARY?

Okay, your company sponsors a defined benefit (DB) plan and you have an actuary and of course, your actuary is the best. Having been in this profession for 30 years, I've learned that most companies and their actuaries develop a mutual trust.

The reason is not as obvious as you think. How do I know that? It's because I have seen it in action. You see, actuaries produce numbers and results that most people don't understand. It seems magical. And because those numbers and results are often important to plan sponsors and the people who work for them, they develop a trust for the people who bring them those numbers.

Are those numbers correct? Almost always, they are.

So, tell us, John, what's your point? We should trust those actuaries, right?

In short, you should trust the numbers that they produce. Today, with sophisticated actuarial valuation software that is relatively uniform in the industry, most actuaries produce about the same bottom line numbers in an actuarial valuation.

So, what's the problem? It's just a commodity, isn't it?

Frankly, the problem may be in what your actuary doesn't tell you that an ACTUARY would. What I'm not being specific about here are things that would take up far too much space for this blog. But, how well do you understand the true financial effects of your plan? Are there opportunities that you are missing out on because your actuary hasn't told you? Is the problem that your actuary just hasn't thought about these things?

Honestly, it doesn't matter why you're not getting that kind of information, but just that you're not getting it.

An ACTUARY could show you what you're missing out on.

Contact me here or after January 1, contact me here.

It couldn't hurt, not even a little bit.