TITLE
"An Examination of the Current State of Retirement Savings with a Focus on Individual Exemptionsy," Journal of Insurance Issues,Cassandra R. Cole, Kathleen A. McCullough,
and Stephen P. Paris, Fall 2006, Vol. 29, No. 2, pp. 107-131. Full-text articles soon will be available through ABI/INFORM and EBSCO. Entire article in Acrobat format.

ABSTRACT
With the heightened concern surrounding the financial position of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation and possible changes to the Social Security retirement system, the protection of employer-sponsored retirement benefits is of critical importance. This study reviews the adequacies of the various retirement savings components and provides an analysis of an often overlooked area of pension management, individual exemptions. Exemptions occur when pension plans or companies that manage pension plan assets are granted special permission to engage in transactions that generally are prohibited by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA). This study examines trends in the types of individual exemptions granted between 1997 and 2004. There are several clear trends observed in individual exemptions during the sample period. For example, while the total number of exemptions granted has decreased in recent years, there has been an increase in exemptions related to the acquisition of assets and demutualizations. In addition, most individual exemptions are not granted to specific plans, but rather to parties in interest that manage plans, such as financial institutions. For this reason, the number of plan participants affected by these exemptions may be much larger than it initially appears based on the number of exemptions. A clearer understanding of the nature of individual exemptions and the potential impact of these transactions is important not only to plan participants, but also to those tasked with regulating private pension plans. [Key words: pension plans, exemptions, regulation.]