The service will complement the firm’s consulting in human resources, particularly in benefit program design.
Historically, companies have been concerned with the design of benefits to attract and retain employees, said Mitch Cole, a Tillinghast – Towers Perrin principal. Today, companies also confront a new slate of employee needs along with cost concerns ¾ rising health care costs, increasing costs for internationally mobile employees, and calls by employees to increase the funding security of deferred compensation and supplementary pension obligations. With Strategic Benefits FinancingSM , we can help clients develop financing arrangements that optimize financial capacity to absorb risk, recognizing accounting, regulatory and tax constraints.
Current trends affecting employee benefits financing have encouraged our clients to seek innovative ways to reduce cost, improve working capital management and seek restructuring of traditional methods of funding benefits liabilities, continued Cole.
Strategic Benefits FinancingSM is driven by what clients are telling us, added John Woyke, a Towers Perrin principal. Client priorities include:
reducing the cost of meeting the benefit obligations of international employees;
restructuring capital aimed at securing deferred compensation and other similar promises;
finding a way to use the value of pension surplus.
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These are substantive financial issues that can have a profound effect on a company’s balance sheet and income statement, said Cole. Yet these issues are frequently addressed only as an adjunct of benefits design. We are addressing them head-on from both design and financial implications.
Towers Perrin’s Strategic Benefits FinancingSM blends an organization’s human resources and financial strength in working partnership, said Woyke. This type of an approach can create great gains for both the corporation and its employees.
According to Cole, Towers Perrin has assembled a team of professionals in North America and Europe with a unique blend of expertise in accounting, corporate finance, executive compensation, health and welfare, life and annuity products, pensions and tax. We have drawn on many of Towers Perrin’s resources to create a seamless service for our clients, said Cole.
