Die Umstellung der Anlage der Heubeck-Richttafeln von Perioden- auf Generationentafeln und ihre Wirkung auf die Kosten von Pensionszusagen

Most German employers are using mortality tables provided by Heubeck AG, a German consultancy firm, for actuarial calculations of company pension plans. Before 2005, Heubeck AG has been publishing projected future period tables rather than cohort tables. This paper analyzes the cost of using such period tables in actuarial calculations for an individual employee’s defined benefit pension plan. Our benchmark is a plan that is fairly priced by using a cohort table. We find that the employer may incur significant costs from using a period table for calculating plan benefits. As life expectancy tends to be underestimated, benefits granted will be too generous. In contrast, using period tables for determining provisions for plan liabilities in tax accounting doesn’t carry extra costs. Although yearly tax deductions differ when using period or cohort tables, tax shields are roughly the same in NPV terms. Thus, Heubeck’s switch to cohort tables means a significant improvement for benefit calculation but won’t have tax effects, on average.