CT Senate Passes H.B. 6772 – Pension De-Risking

On Wednesday, June 3rd, 2015 the Connecticut Senate unanimously voted to pass H.B. 6772, providing creditor protections to retirees in pension de-risking transactions.  The bill will now be presented to Governor Malloy for signature.  ProtectSeniors.org, a non-profit group advocating for retirees in Connecticut and across the nation led the charge in passing this legislation. As special […]

Stone testifies before ERISA Advisory Council

Edward Stone testified before the U.S. Department of Labor’s Advisory Council on Employee Welfare and Pension Benefit Plans (ERISA Advisory Council) on May 28, 2015.  Stone testified on the need for disclosures to retirees both pre and post pension risk transfers. Recommended disclosures prior to pension risk transfer included: A detailed disclosure statement that contains […]

Structured Settlement Fraud

Two Edward Stone Law cases were featured prominently in today’s Wall Street Journal – “Firms Help Settlement Holders Cash Out Payments Meant to Last a Lifetime”.  What the WSJ article fails to describe is the high pressure predatory sales tactics used to raid large structured settlement annuities that were intended to last a lifetime.  The […]

Once Again, “Don’t Put All Your Eggs in One Basket”

These issues keep coming up again, and again.  Are annuities safe?  Should you lock up all your money in one single annuity? As Dennis Beaver, columnist for the Hanford Sentinel, and a Bakersfield, California attorney told his readers in a recent column “determining if an annuity is right for you requires a careful financial analysis conducted […]

Pension Plan De-Risking Causes Concern for Unions and Retirees with Defined Benefit Plans

Defined benefit plan sponsors have been quietly working to reduce corporate liabilities by moving retirees out of defined benefit plans and into group annuity contracts.  This practice, known to retirees as “pension stripping” takes away the uniform protections intended by Congress under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) and dumps the retirees into the […]

Eddie Stone Talks about Pension Stripping on Labor Lines Radio

In this radio interview on Long Island’s original labor radio show, Labor Lines, Vic Fusco discusses concerns over pension de-risking, or pension stripping as retirees refer to it, with  New York State Senator Tony Avella and Eddie Stone.   Pension stripping is the latest tool used by corporations to remove pension liabilities from their balance […]

NY Senator Tony Avella to Introduce Bill to Combat Pension Stripping

New York State Senator Tony Avella will introduce legislation in the upcoming session designed to protect retirees whose pensions are sold off without advance notice.  Once known as “pension de-risking” retirees refer to this method of transferring the financial risk of pensions from corporations to retirees as “pension stripping”.  The method of pension stripping that […]

TOO BIG TO FAIL? WILL THIS MAKE YOUR ANNUITY ANY SAFER?

Recently AIG, GE Capital and Prudential Financial disclosed that they are among the nonbank firms soon to be deemed systemically important financial institutions (SIFI), according to reports in the New York Times and The Economist.  This designation will come with higher capital requirements for these entities and may give consumers the false impression that SIFI’s […]

Executive Life – Updated Schedule Available

An updated schedule detailing the benefit cuts for Executive Life Insurance Company of New York (ELNY) annuitants is available on the new GABC website.  This updated schedule indicates that most shortfall payees will see additional cuts of approximately 3-4%.  If you are an ELNY annuitant whose benefits are being cut, we can perform an analysis […]

Where is Your Pension?

The corporate desire to shed pension obligations went into over-drive in 2012 with pension de-risking transactions by Ford, General Motors and Verizon.  The pension de-risking trend allowed these corporations to eliminate their obligations to their retirees by billions of dollars.  In his column published in the Hanford Sentinel on August 21, 2013 columnist Dennis Beaver answers his reader’s […]