Patent ID: 8249900

Claim:
A method for terminating all or a part of a pension plan having one or more plan participants, the pension plan being managed by a plan sponsor, the method comprising: receiving data representative of the pension plan, said data including benefits data owed under the pension plan to the pension plan participants; establishing a mutual insurance company, wherein the mutual insurance company is created for the purpose of issuing the one or more annuities to the plan participants, and wherein the mutual insurance company has as its members the plan participants such that the plan participants have all the benefits of ownership of the mutual insurance company; determining a target risk-based capital ratio range for capitalization of the mutual insurance company, based on at least the benefits data; calculating a funding ratio for the mutual insurance company, wherein the funding ratio reflects the approximate amount of capital required to realize the target risk-based capital ratio range; calculating a premium payment for the purchase of the one or more annuities issued by the mutual insurance company, wherein terms of the one or more annuities cover benefits owed to the plan participants under the pension plan, and wherein the one or more annuities are issued to the one or more plan participants; wherein the purchase of the one or more annuities by the pension plan via the premium payment to the mutual insurance company and the issuance of the annuities by the mutual insurance company to the plan participants result in the termination of all or a part of the pension plan; and wherein at least one of the steps of calculating a funding ratio, and calculating a premium payment is implemented by a processing system having software specifically adapted for such purpose.