Pensions, Benefits and Social Security

Whether it is for a Pension Fund, an HR Department, a Social Security Organisation, an Insurance Company, a Third Party Administrator or other service provider, Talk Software has the required modules and functions for an effective and cost efficient pension and benefit plan administration including;

• Plan design including DB, DC, CARE, Cafeteria, Hybrid, Cash Balance
• Plan design for a multitude of benefits
• Front and back office administration
• Actuarial, funding and financial functions
• Communication of pensions and benefits including web enabled member self service
• Social security and multi-employer benefit plans or pension funds

Plan design - DB, DC, CARE, Cafeteria, Hybrid, Cash

The Benefit Plan Module has been especially designed for the administration of a multitude of plans including DB, DC, Care, Hybrid plans, flexible benefit / Cafeteria plans, Cash Balance plans (and combinations of those). The available types of plan rules and formulas are huge.

Talk Software has a wide range of DC functions for instance build in options for phantom share plans, investment options with or without guaranteed interest rates and bonuses, multi life style and auto rebalancing options.

Benefit plans in Talk Software can be configured through parameterisation as sets of benefits for groups of members, each of them with their own plan rules including affiliation rules, plan formula, financing and investment options.

The number of benefit plans, of benefits in a group, of flexible benefit options, of investment options, and the number of member groups are virtually unlimited. New types of benefits can be configured.

The available plan formulas are huge including step rate formula, multi-step rate formula, offset formula, the possibility to integrate values from other benefits in the plan formula. You can also include actuarial formulas in general or actuarial rating formulas as insurance companies do. They can be defined as final pay benefits using different options such as the average of the three highest pensionable remunerations over the last 10 years.

Pensionable remuneration can take into account different elements of remuneration for example basic salary, allowances, bonuses, commissions and/or pay for performance, and can be defined separately for each benefit if needed.

These different types of formulas can be used for defining the contributions, the benefits and/or a combination of both.

Talk Software allows for the administration of more complex plans like CARE (Career Average Revalued Plans), cash balance plans, cafeteria / flexible benefit plans, hybrid plans or a combination of those. Cafeteria or flexible benefit plans can go from simple choices over different investment products to more complex options where the member has a budget to spend over different options of different benefits, where the remainder is used for savings or retirement benefits with available investment options.

Plans can be designed for the administration of multi - employer or industry wide pension and benefit plans or funds.

The overall result is a very powerful benefit plan module.

Integration of multi benefits, multi formulas and multi funding

Talk Software is designed for an integrated administration of virtually an unlimited number of benefits each with its funding rules.

The different types of benefits are also virtually unlimited including:

• Retirement and pre-retirement benefits
• End of Service Benefits
• AVCs (Additional Voluntary Contributions) with or without company matching
• Health care and dental benefits, before and after retirement
• Life cover, long and short term disability
• Job protection
• Dependent life cover for surviving partner / widow / widower and surviving dependent children
• Company car, company mobile phone, company laptop
• Mobile phone credits
• Allowances including representation allowance, child allowance, housing allowance, COLA (Cost of Living Adjustment) allowance, lunch allowance
• Company loans including house loans and advance payments on remuneration, with different reimbursement / amortisation possibilities

Each of these benefits can be defined as lump sum amounts, annuity or pension payments, reimbursement of expenses, premium waiver or other. Each of them can be designed using their own benefit formula and funding possibilities. Funding possibilities include employer contributions, member contributions, other contributors or a combination of these, with a multitude of collection possibilities like through the employer (including for instance member contributions through salary deductions), directly from the member or from other contributors.

Front and Back Office Administration

Front and back office administration include functions for member registration, contributions collections, benefit payments, pension payroll, keeping track of the building up of benefit and vested rights, transfer of benefit rights.

The benefit plan functions include the registration of plan members, the building up of their benefit rights and the automatic calculation of vested rights.

Talk Software has built in functions for the periodic communication and reporting by entities of member's remuneration, for calculation of contributions and benefits and the collection of contributions through the entities, the members or other contributors.

Individual benefits and vested rights are kept through different types of member accounts such as active member accounts, deferred member accounts, pensioner accounts.

Actuarial Calculation Engine including Funding and Liability Valuations

Talk Software has a powerful built in actuarial calculation engine. It can be configured in benefit plan formula, for the calculation of contributions, benefits and vested rights, for future projections of benefits.

It includes a comprehensive premium rating tool for the financing of benefits through insurance companies.

The actuarial calculation engine allows for different types of actuarial valuations including funding and liability valuations and for financial reporting purposes.

Communication of pensions and benefits including web enabled member self service

Talk Software has different functions for the communication of pensions and benefits, including the creation of benefit statements and web enabled member self service.

Benefit statements can go from simple one page benefit statements to more comprehensive member statement booklets. They can take into account the statutory and regulatory requirements. Benefit statements can be created online for a single member or for a group of members. Separate batch processes online or scheduled can be set up for the creation for large volume benefit statements for all or larger groups of members.

Talk Software has comprehensive web enabled member self service functions, including:

• Online consultation of active member accounts with vested rights and contributions registered
• Online projections calculation of pensions and benefits
• Online registration of changes like contact information, address, etc
• Online registration of choices in flexible benefit / cafeteria plans
• Online consultation and/or creation of benefit statements