Association of BellTel Retirees Publishes Spring 2023 newsletter

The Association of BellTel Retirees has published its Spring 2023 newsletter, and Retirees for Justice has been prominently featured. The newsletter includes discussion of our policy priorities for 2023, instructions on how to easily write to your representatives using a feature on our website, and profiles of some of our staff. Huge thanks must go […]

Excess Mortality During Covid 19 Not Fully Explained by Official Death Records

During the Covid-19 pandemic, a measure known as “excess mortality” has been used to predict how many deaths were caused by the disease. The value of the measure is that, at least ostensibly, it factors out deaths from non-Covid causes, showing only those deaths caused by Covid-19. Historical demographic data is used to calculate expected […]

Largest Retirement Funds Show Record High Asset Losses

The year ending September 30, 2022 was not a good one for the US’s largest retirement funds. According to Pensions & Investments, the assets of the 1000 largest funds devalued by 13.9% compared to the same time last year. That is a total value of $12.16 trillion. Last year, their total assets were valued at […]

New Jersey Insurers Slip Behind Curtain of Secrecy

In a piece for Life Annuity Specialist, Cyril Tuohy has highlighted some concerning New Jersey legislation that has, until now, gone unused and seemingly unenforced. However, some insurers have recently begun relying on it to avoid publishing their quarterly statements. The law in question is N.J. Stat. § 17:23-1, and it provides that “Quarterly statements […]

President Biden Signs Laws to Assist Retirees

On December 29, 2022, President Biden signed an omnibus spending act known as the “Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023”  which included the Secure Act 2.0, and which contains two provisions which assist retirees impacted by pension risk transfer (PRT) deals. The first provision relates to improved transparency of information for retirees. Section 319 directs the Treasury […]

Pension Risk Transfer Facts for 2022

You may be wondering how the market for Pension Risk Transfers fared in 2022. As a final wrap up post for 2022, here are some stats to help you answer that question. A pension “buy-out” transaction transfers all liability to retirees and beneficiaries from the plan sponsor to the insurance company through the purchase of […]

Rolls-Royce North America Transfers $145 Million in Pensions to Legal and General

On Thursday, Dec 1, 2022, Rolls-Royce North America announced that in July this year, it closed on a PRT deal to transfer $145 million in pensions to Legal & General Retirement America.  Rolls-Royce described the transaction as beneficial to pension holders because it provided further security to them. The deal affected 1200 retirees. Read more […]

LIMRA reports record-setting increases in the PRT market in third quarter of 2022

There is no doubt that the PRT market is growing fast. LIMRA’s U.S. Group Annuity Risk Transfer Sales Survey shows it. Total buy-out sales – that is, PRT deals in which pension liabilities are fully transferred to an insurer – reached $41 billion by November 30, 2022. This is 89% higher than the same time […]

Various Factors Make PRT Deals More Likely in 2023

An analysis for Chief Investment Officer by Andrea Riquier suggests that investment strategies in 2023 will include a greater number of PRT deals. This is because of the complex interaction of factors including the recent increase in interest rates. In March 2021 when the American Rescue Plan Act provided relief to corporate employers struggling with […]

Retirees for Justice Writes to Senators

After Senators Sherrod Brown and Elizabeth Warren showed clear concern for the interests of retirees in their comments in the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs on September 8, 2022, we decided to write to both senators expressing our support for their comments. We also offered to meet with them so we could […]