Considerations for plan sponsors

Since 1921, MetLife has worked with companies on their pension de-risking journeys to provide financial security for their retirees. As a leading pension risk transfer provider, MetLife has a century of experience in managing pension risk transfer transactions and servicing plan participants.

By leveraging our expertise, we can provide you with a series of key steps to help guide your journey to pension de-risking. 

Implementing a pension risk transfer via a group annuity contract presents a particular set of tasks and considerations. Effective communication and strong support for plan participants are critical to success. This requires collaboration between the plan sponsor, its advisors, and the group annuity provider (insurer).

While the length of time to complete a pension risk transfer will vary by plan, the entire process could typically take 12 to 18 months. Pension risk transfer steps include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Completing a financial analysis for the plan
• Identifying the company’s internal team that will manage the pension risk transfer process
• Retaining advisors to help guide the plan sponsor and fiduciary through the process (this could include specialty consultants such as actuaries, investment advisor and/or legal counsel)
• Reviewing and cleansing participant data
• Conducting insurer due diligence by plan’s fiduciary (including Department of Labor Interpretive Bulletin 95-1)
• Developing and issuing a Request for Proposal
• Evaluating RFP responses, including quotes, submitted by the insurers
• Selecting the annuity provider
• Communicating to plan participants, retirees, etc.
• Transitioning participant data to insurer for implementation of group annuity contract
• Finalizing the contracts