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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
ProtectSeniors.Org is leading a grass roots campaign advocating for the enactment of state legislation to protect retirees who have been moved out of their ERISA protected defined benefit pension plans and into group annuity contracts. As Special Counsel to ProtectSeniors.Org, Edward Stone Law has assisted the organization in their efforts to educate their membership on […]
On behalf of ProtectSeniors.org, a retiree advocacy group, Edward Stone debated the issue of pension de-risking at the Spring 2014 National Conference of Insurance Legislators (NCOIL) meeting in Savannah, Georgia on March 9th with Prudential Insurance’s pension expert, Dylan Tyson. Moderated by Rep. George Keiser (ND), former NCOIL President, the debate addressed questions such as […]
Edward Stone will participate in a point-counterpoint debate on pension de-risking at the NCOIL (National Conference of Insurance Legislators) spring meeting held in Savannah, Georgia March 7-9, 2014. The proposed Pension De-Risking Model Act, sponsored by Rep. George Keiser (ND) would establish protections at the state level for retirees whose pension benefits were transferred from […]
As more companies seek to reduce their pension obligations by transferring their obligations to insurance companies via annuity buy-outs, regulation of these risk transfers, including disclosures and protections for retirees will be paramount. Retirees often refer to annuity buy-outs as “pension stripping” transactions because the offloading of pension obligations to an insurance company or other […]
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 […]
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 […]
© Edward S. Stone 2014-2022.
