Associate

The Business

Our Retirement business provides actuarial support, plan design, and administrative services for all forms of pension and retirement savings plans. Our colleagues help clients assess the costs and risks of retirement plans on cash flow, earnings and the balance sheet, the effects of changing workforce demographics on their retirement plans, and retiree benefit adequacy and security. We offer clients a full range of integrated retirement consulting services and solutions to meet the needs of all types of employers. We help multinationals coordinate plan design and actuarial services across their complex global plans. We bring in-depth data analysis and perspective to their decision-making process as we have tracked the retirement designs and financing strategies of companies around the world over many decades.

The Role

DUTIES:

• Associate within the Retirement Line of Business at Willis Towers Watson US LLC in Philadelphia, PA.

• Perform accounting and funding valuations for pension and retiree welfare plans following US GAAP, IFRS and ERISA regulations. Includes processing, reconciling, and reviewing annual census data for a plan population; producing and reviewing system generated plan liabilities; developing and reviewing financial reporting results and formal actuarial reports.

• Conduct forecasting and modelling of future benefit obligations for retirement and other post-retirement plans to help clients with annual budgets.

• Responsible for assisting with setting assumptions such as discount rate, expected return on assets, and mortality tables used in year-end financial disclosure.

• Calculate benefits reflected in proxy statements and review the statements to ensure accurate reporting.

• Monitor current market conditions and government rulings that could impact benefit plans and relaying these changes to clients as appropriate.

• Review actuarial valuation assumptions such as retirement rates, termination rates, disability incidence rates, salary increase rates, form of payment election rates, spousal age difference, and retiree medical participation rates by conducting plan experience studies.

• Manage multiple client projects by organizing periodic status meetings, documenting discussion notes, structuring project timelines and championing professional excellence.

The Requirements

REQUIREMENTS:

• Bachelor’s degree (U.S. or foreign equivalent) in Actuarial Science, Mathematics, Statistics or a related quantitative field.

• One (1) year of experience as an Actuarial Analyst or a related role.

• Prior experience collaborating with consultants on team projects that entails providing actuarial services to clients in various industries such as manufacturing, utilities, investments, legal, insurance, and health care.

• Prior experience with databases, dataset analysis and data reconciliation, project management, and report writing.

• Prior experience contributing to plan design and union negotiation of retirement plans, including assessing liabilities and preparing cost estimates.

• Prior experience conducting asset and liability projection modeling based on funding policy and economic scenarios to determine funded status, net periodic benefit cost calculations, and minimum required contribution calculations. 

• Prior experience working with US GAAP, IAS 19, ERISA, FASB, Department of Labor, Pension Protection Act and other Government regulations.

• Prior experience carrying out experience studies to improve plan valuation assumptions such as termination and retirement rates, salary scale, disability incidence rates, form of payment election rates, spousal age difference, retiree medical participation rates and mortality credibility analysis.

• Proficiency in Microsoft Excel, Word, and PowerPoint.

• Experience utilizing actuarial valuation systems. 

• Experience with discount rate and pension benefit forecasting models.

• Exam progress toward designation as an Associate of the Society of Actuaries (ASA)