Longevity risk for employers
June 01, 2013
By Brent Simmons and Heather Wolfe
Despite tastes for beaver tails and poutine, Canadians are living longer than ever before. And if you’re an employer with a defined benefit (DB) pension plan, it probably means that you’ll be paying pensions to your retirees for longer than you expect.
These additional pensions mean an increase in going concern and accounting costs–possibly of 5% to 10% according to a recent Canadian Institute of Actuaries (CIA) webcast. This increase in costs is the result of current longevity assumptions not keeping up with actual experience.
