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CES-CREWS brings new perspectives to pension de-risking and a fresh way of doing things.
Our driving notion is that perpetuating the status quo should not be an overriding consideration when it comes to formulating a de-risking strategy. Especially since the habit of doing so in the past has led to the problems many plans are facing.
Working with the company’s team, CES-CREWS helps examine the options and helps implement recommendations, if desired. We work with existing advisors and can employ additional resources as needed.
It is important that those making strategic decisions for the company understand the issues and options.
We can help arrange the full range of professional services needed to investigate and implement a de-risking strategy at the plan sponsor’s request.
We review the impact of various design and funding options to help reach conclusions with concomitant recommendations. These include action steps for implementation (if desired) and administration (if required), keeping in mind the plan sponsor’s state of affairs.
Our services include the “soup to nuts” quantitative and qualitative resources required as well as proprietary analytical tools to make complicated issues clearer and simpler.
Our services are performed on a fee basis and are available only through advisers & consultants, whom we work with closely. These include wire houses and consulting firms, and others active in the pension business.
Our clients work with us to avail themselves of our innovative services and capabilities on an as-needed, high-value basis. Quality and breadth of expertise is expanded as we bring a professional, world-class capability.
Our driving notion is that perpetuating the status quo should not be an overriding consideration when it comes to formulating a de-risking strategy. Especially since the habit of doing so in the past has led to the problems many plans are facing.
Working with the company’s team, CES-CREWS helps examine the options and helps implement recommendations, if desired. We work with existing advisors and can employ additional resources as needed.
It is important that those making strategic decisions for the company understand the issues and options.
We can help arrange the full range of professional services needed to investigate and implement a de-risking strategy at the plan sponsor’s request.
We review the impact of various design and funding options to help reach conclusions with concomitant recommendations. These include action steps for implementation (if desired) and administration (if required), keeping in mind the plan sponsor’s state of affairs.
Our services include the “soup to nuts” quantitative and qualitative resources required as well as proprietary analytical tools to make complicated issues clearer and simpler.
Our services are performed on a fee basis and are available only through advisers & consultants, whom we work with closely. These include wire houses and consulting firms, and others active in the pension business.
Our clients work with us to avail themselves of our innovative services and capabilities on an as-needed, high-value basis. Quality and breadth of expertise is expanded as we bring a professional, world-class capability.
CES-CREWS is guided by one central question: How do we help make pension plans work well for everyone involved?
We are an impartial 3rd party - it has no financial interest in the participant's election. CREWS is paid solely from the fees paid for the use of its services, systems and online assistance provided by its materials.
By “everyone” we mean the plan sponsors (i.e, the employer), the participants (employees and former employees), and the providers of professional products and services that enable the plans to work both financially and legally.
The fundamental characteristics of most pension plans are defined by Federal law, which in many ways is a beneficial arrangement, but in other ways is not. Plan sponsors are severely constrained in how they establish, fund, administer, and account on their financial statements for pension plans. Participants are also constrained in how and when they receive their benefits.
These constraints help plans deliver the promised retirement benefits to participants. But they also keep plans in a regulatory box that limits their ability to do an even better job.
Can a better job be done outside of that box? This is a question requiring careful analysis, whether you are an employer, a plan participant, or a third party that helps plan sponsors and/or participants. Each party has much to gain, or sometimes lose, depending on whether retirement benefits stay in the regulatory box or move (fully or partly) outside of it, and on what specific arrangements are made.
Our role is to help assemble the knowledge and insight that can make it clear whether changes make sense or not. In situations where they do, plan sponsors can come out ahead, and plan participants have the choice either of maintaining benefits that are essentially (or perhaps exactly) the same as what they already have, or of choosing alternatives that might be even better for them. This means that, first, the plan sponsor has to make a decision whether to make fundamental changes in the plan. And if they decide to do so, then, second, the plan participants usually have decisions of their own to make.
Our mission is to support wise decision-making in both parts of this process.
We aim to be highly transparent in doing so, which is why we have portions of our site that pertain to plan sponsors, plan participants, and third party intermediaries, and why we open all parts of the site to everyone. We believe that when decisions are being made, it is helpful when all parties know who stands to benefit, and who is taking on what risks.
Supporting wise choices for plan sponsors means providing them the opportunity to work with experts who can identify and explain all the options and then help implement them. Supporting plan participants means providing educational materials that explain the nature and consequences of the choices being presented, and advisory software that can crunch the numbers that apply to each person’s situation.
For us, it’s not enough to get things to happen. We want to make sure that they happen in the best possible way, so that plan sponsors and participants all benefit, where that is possible, and if not, that those not benefiting are at least as well off as they were before.
We are an impartial 3rd party - it has no financial interest in the participant's election. CREWS is paid solely from the fees paid for the use of its services, systems and online assistance provided by its materials.
By “everyone” we mean the plan sponsors (i.e, the employer), the participants (employees and former employees), and the providers of professional products and services that enable the plans to work both financially and legally.
The fundamental characteristics of most pension plans are defined by Federal law, which in many ways is a beneficial arrangement, but in other ways is not. Plan sponsors are severely constrained in how they establish, fund, administer, and account on their financial statements for pension plans. Participants are also constrained in how and when they receive their benefits.
These constraints help plans deliver the promised retirement benefits to participants. But they also keep plans in a regulatory box that limits their ability to do an even better job.
Can a better job be done outside of that box? This is a question requiring careful analysis, whether you are an employer, a plan participant, or a third party that helps plan sponsors and/or participants. Each party has much to gain, or sometimes lose, depending on whether retirement benefits stay in the regulatory box or move (fully or partly) outside of it, and on what specific arrangements are made.
Our role is to help assemble the knowledge and insight that can make it clear whether changes make sense or not. In situations where they do, plan sponsors can come out ahead, and plan participants have the choice either of maintaining benefits that are essentially (or perhaps exactly) the same as what they already have, or of choosing alternatives that might be even better for them. This means that, first, the plan sponsor has to make a decision whether to make fundamental changes in the plan. And if they decide to do so, then, second, the plan participants usually have decisions of their own to make.
Our mission is to support wise decision-making in both parts of this process.
We aim to be highly transparent in doing so, which is why we have portions of our site that pertain to plan sponsors, plan participants, and third party intermediaries, and why we open all parts of the site to everyone. We believe that when decisions are being made, it is helpful when all parties know who stands to benefit, and who is taking on what risks.
Supporting wise choices for plan sponsors means providing them the opportunity to work with experts who can identify and explain all the options and then help implement them. Supporting plan participants means providing educational materials that explain the nature and consequences of the choices being presented, and advisory software that can crunch the numbers that apply to each person’s situation.
For us, it’s not enough to get things to happen. We want to make sure that they happen in the best possible way, so that plan sponsors and participants all benefit, where that is possible, and if not, that those not benefiting are at least as well off as they were before.