PENSION CALCULATOR HELP

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1 Overview The Pension Calculator is an online application which prompts the user to fill in the pertinent claim, valuation and beneficiary information and results in the present value of future pension claim payments and each of the items of information calculated or determined during the pension calculation. The Pension Calculator provides the present value of future indemnity pension payments as defined on the Individual Case Report (ICR) requirements in the Massachusetts Statistical Plan. Accordingly, the application 1. Provides for the pension calculation for only reports 1-10 which represents required statistical reporting. 2. Calculates the pension values as of the unit statistical valuations for each report level. No other valuations are available. This tool follows the Statistical Plan instructions and examples and is meant to assist our members with ICR reporting. It is not a statistical requirement to report the pension calculator, therefore, it should not be considered to supersede the reserving expertise of each individual carrier. Navigation The Pension Calculator is a simple two page application. On the first screen the user inputs or selects information. From the first screen the user can 1. Return to the Bureau s website home page by pressing Home. 2. Access this help document by pressing Help. 3. Log out of the application by pressing Logout. 4. Edit the input values and calculate the pension value from the input values by pressing Calculate Pension. 5. Remove all entered values by pressing Clear. Page 1 of 5 06/25/2008 v. 1.0

2 From the second screen the user can 1. Return to the Bureau s website home page by pressing Home. 2. Access this help document by pressing Help. 3. Log out of the application by pressing Logout. 4. Return to the first screen by pressing Close. Input The user enters or selects from drop down menus the following information 1. Selects either death or a permanent total pension calculation. 2. Selects the unit statistical report level from the range of Enters the policy effective date formatted as mm/dd/yyyy. Note the user must enter the backslashes of the format. The policy effective date must be a valid date no less than 01/01/99 and no more than the current date minus 17 months. 4. Enters the accident date formatted as mm/dd/yyy. Note the user must enter the backslashes of the format. The accident date must be a valid date which is greater than or equal to the policy effective date and less than the policy effective date plus one year and sixteen days. 5. Enters average weekly wage (AWW) of the injured worker. This must be in whole dollars and must be greater than 0 and less than 10,000. Note since benefits are limited to the state average weekly wage the calculation does not need AWW greater than 10, If a death claim is selected the user either selects accident date as the date of death checking the box labeled Use Accident Date as Date of Death or enters a date of death formatted mm/dd/yyyy. If entered the date of death must be a valid date which is greater than the accident date and less than the last day of the valuation month. 7. If a death claim is selected the system allows the user to enter up to 5 beneficiaries. With each beneficiary the user must a. Select one of the following beneficiaries i. Spouse wife ii. Spouse husband iii. Child iv. Siblings Page 2 of 5 06/25/2008 v. 1.0

3 v. Parent vi. Other b. Enter the beneficiary s date of birth formatted as mm/dd/yyyy which must be a valid date and less than the valuation date. c. If the beneficiary is a child the user must enter the age of the child at which the benefits are expected to stop. Normally this will be 18 or 21, depending on the child s continuing education. The age at which the benefits are expected to stop must be greater than the child s age at death and can be no greater than 30. The application will allow the entry of age on any beneficiary but ages will be ignored unless the beneficiary is a child. d. Note: if the beneficiary is a disabled adult who is dependent upon and a child of the deceased worker the beneficiary is selected is other rather than child. 8. If a permanent total claim is selected the system allows the user to enter two beneficiaries. The first defaults to the injured worker. The second beneficiary is optional but if entered must be the spouse of the injured worker. a. Enter the beneficiary s date of birth formatted as mm/dd/yyyy which must be a valid date and less than the valuation date. b. Select the gender of the claimant. Note on Date Entry This application will allow the user to enter the date without days. The application assumes the first day of the month for policy effective, accident and birth dates. To ensure accuracy the user should enter 8 digit dates with slashes separating month/day/year. Results The application responds with the following information. 1. State average weekly wage (SAWW) at the time of the accident, which is the maximum weekly benefit. 2. The minimum weekly benefit. 3. Valuation Date which is determined by the policy effective date and the report level. Page 3 of 5 06/25/2008 v. 1.0

4 4. First Escalation Date which is the date the first cost of living adjustment (COLA) can be made on the claim. 5. An indication that COLA is applicable. 6. The effective date of the SAWW in effect at valuation. 7. The COLA factor 8. Escalated weekly benefit 9. Escalated annual 10. Beneficiary Age at accident 11. Pension Table Effective Year 12. Pension Table 13. Pension Value 14. For a death claim the following a. An indication if children benefits increase the surviving spouse benefits. b. The ages at death of each of the beneficiaries. c. Number of weeks for each child s additional benefit. 15. For a permanent total (PT) an indication that the pension value is weighted for survivorship benefits. 16. Future value of Indemnity pension. Contacts For questions on this application or Individual Case Reports contact Bill Wager at bwager@wcribma.org. Application Limitations 1. This application will only calculate MA pension claims, it cannot accommodate other states or USL&H claims. 2. This application will not accommodate more than 5 beneficiaries on a single death claim. 3. This application will assume that the beneficiary of a permanent total claim is the injured worker and the surviving spouse if any. 4. This application will assume total dependency. Page 4 of 5 06/25/2008 v. 1.0

5 5. Where the children are the only beneficiaries, the application will assume lifetime benefits using the Other than Spouse table. Reserves may be adjusted should lifetime benefits not apply. Notes on Pension Calculation Factors 1. The State Average Weekly Wage(SAWW) and the New England Consumer Price Index are published each October 1 st. The Pension Calculator will use updated SAWW and Cost of Living Adjustments soon after the publication of the Bureau Circular announcing the updates. 2. As of 2003 the pension tables going forward are updated following rate revisions. Since this application must be able to calculate the pension value for any valuation the new pension tables are added to the table and do not replace previous tables. The Pension Calculator currently uses the pension tables effective in 1988, 2003, 2004, 2006, and We anticipate pension table updates in 2009 to follow the 2008 rate revision. Again this application will be updated after the publication of the Bureau Circular. Page 5 of 5 06/25/2008 v. 1.0