Company: CRD-A
Filing Date: 2025-03-03
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0000950170-25-030894
Chunk: 86

Company: CRAWFORD & CO
Filing Date: 2025-03-03
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1B
Chunk 86
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 Benefit Pension Funding and Cost

We sponsor a qualified defined benefit pension plan in the U.S., (the "U.S. Qualified Plan") three defined benefit plans in the U.K. (the "U.K. Plans"), and defined benefit pension plans in the Netherlands, Norway, Germany, and the Philippines (the "Other International Plans"). Future cash funding of our defined benefit pension plans will depend largely on future investment performance, interest rates, changes to mortality tables, and regulatory requirements. Effective December 31, 2002, we froze our U.S. Qualified Plan. The aggregate deficit in the funded status of the U.S. Plan and Other International Plans with unfunded deficits totaled $21.1 million and $24.0 million at the end of 2024 and 2023, respectively. The 2024 decrease in the unfunded deficit of our defined benefit pension plans primarily resulted from actuarial gains during the year. In 2024, we made no contributions to our U.S. Qualified Plan and $2.9 million to our U.K. Plans. In 2023, we made no contributions to our U.S. Qualified Plan and $2.4 million to our U.K. Plans. The U.K. Plans were in a funded status totaling $9.2 million and $10.9 million at the end of 2024 and 2023, respectively, with the fair value of plan assets exceeding the projected benefit obligation. There was a $(1.7) million decrease during 2024 in the net prepaid pension balances of the U.K. defined benefit plans.

Our frozen U.S. Qualified Plan was underfunded by $19.0 million at December 31, 2024 based on an accumulated benefit obligation of $248.5 million. The Company does not expect to make any discretionary contributions to the U.S. Qualified Plan for 2025. 

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Funding requirements are no longer as sensitive to changes in the discount rate used to determine the present value of projected benefits payable under the U.S. Qualified Plan. Volatility in the capital markets, mortality changes and future legislation may have a negative impact on our pension plans, which may further increase the underfunded portion and our attendant funding obligations. Expected and required contributions to our underfunded defined benefit pension plans could reduce our liquidity, restrict available cash for our operating, financing, and investing needs and may materially adversely affect our financial condition and our ability to deploy capital to other opportunities.

Commercial Commitments

As a component