Ed Burrows Award Call for Papers Extended

There’s still time to submit a paper for consideration for the Ed Burrows Award — the deadline for submissions has been extended to Oct. 8.

The award, bestowed in honor of Ed Burrows’ contribution to the advancement of the general understanding of pension knowledge, is an annual honorary payment of $2,000 for the best paper submitted on a topic selected by the Ed Burrows Award Committee. The winning submission will be the paper that in the committee’s judgment both adheres to that year’s topic, and best advances the understanding of the national retirement system. Any person (or group of people) who submits an article is eligible for consideration (other than individuals on the committee, on the leadership council of ACOPA, or on the executive committee or Board of Directors of ASPPA). All ASPPA members are encouraged to participate in submitting articles, but participation is not limited to ASPPA members.
 
This Year’s Topic

This year’s topic is “individual participant consulting from traditional actuarial and TPA services.” Work provided for individual participants by ACOPA actuaries and ASPPA third party administrators (TPAs) is typically completed once a distribution is paid out of the plan. There are many instances where a participant could have benefited from financial information before taking the distribution — not only rollover advice, but advice on how to best spend down the funds during retirement. Why should that information not come from ACOPA and ASPPA professionals? There are many reasons why it currently does not, such as lack of fees, licensing issues and fiduciary issues.

Our challenge to you is to come up with a plan to educate individual participants as part of ongoing TPA and actuarial services. Where do current barriers exist? Identify the barriers, determine how they can be overcome, then produce a plan to help individual participants during retirement. If you don’t think current barriers are surmountable, explain why, and suggest what business, statutory, or regulatory changes need to be made to allow for the provision of such advice from ACOPA and ASPPA professionals.

Deadline for submission: Wednesday, Oct. 8, 2014
Suggested Length: 1800-2500 words
Submission Instructions: Submit your papers to [email protected], be sure to include “Burrows Paper” in the subject line.

The winner will receive a $2,000 honorary payment and will have an opportunity for publishing and conference presentation.