It's 10 PM. Do You Know Where Your Pension Plan Is?
In "Trying to Clear Fog From Pension Plans" (February 3, 2008), New York Times uber pension reporter Mary Walsh describes a website that provides information about company plans. By going to www.AtPrime.com, one can set up a free account and then click on the "Pension Inspector" to input criteria such as company name. I did so for General Electric Company and up popped four plans, each with its own ID number and plan name. Ditto for Pitney Bowes with a result of 9 plans displayed, including the 401(k) plan.
A cursory review of information found at the site suggests a good start but hardly sufficient to gain a meaningful understanding of economic risk. One can find data about employer contributions, accountant name, plan administrator, funded status (for defined benefit plans), end of year "Current Value of Assets", "Interest Rate Utilized" and so on. However, detailed information about various plans remains a mystery. For example, Schedule H (Form 5500) should give some comfort as a snapshot of plan assets and liabilities. However, the granularity is so far from helpful (there is seldom any detail provided), one wonders why the US government requires the form at all. (Some plans do report detailed holdings at year-end though I could not find such in my investigation of this online tool.
Opacity is certainly not the fault of www.AtPrime.com. The fundamental shortcomings of pension reporting is something we've long anguished about. On April 17, 2006, this blog pointed out the near impossibility of identifying those in charge of a particular plan's investment decisions. Searching for a needle in a haystack may be easier by far. Other than the name of the plan administrator (mandated by law), good luck in identifying relevant persons from public records. Click here to read "Searching for Hidden Treasure."
In "Pension Investment Risk Disclosure - What Don't You Know?" (September 6, 2007), this blog's author compared a partially submerged truck to knowledge about pension risk transparency, asking "Are you seeing only half the truth or are you completely unaware of investment risks lurking in your plan's portfolio?" This goes for 401(k) plans too. What you choose as a "low-risk" investment may be anything but "safe." A read of recent headlines goes to this point.
Kudos to www.AtPrime.com and sites such as www.FreeErisa.com. Until disclosure rules change, something is better than nothing. Still, for a worried employee, retiree or shareholder, wouldn't it be nice to have a better idea about what's going on in pensionland?
