“When a single-employer plan ends without sufficient money to pay benefits, PBGC trustees the plan and assumes responsibility for benefit payments. PBGC became
responsible for an additional 53,000 workers and retirees in 97 trusteed single-employer plans in FY 2014. The three largest plans trusteed were sponsored by Furniture Brands (19,011 participants), Greenwood Mills Inc. (5,175 participants), and Constar Inc. (4,436 participants). PBGC’s newly trusteed plans included almost 28,000 retirees already receiving monthly payments. PBGC paid $5.5 billion in benefits to nearly 813,000 retirees in single-employer plans, with 85 percent paid electronically. Nearly 38,000 new benefit applications were processed — 75 percent of them occurring within 45 days, which was below our target of 87 percent. A major factor influencing performance in this area is the consolidation of the work in our field offices. Initially, the consolidation will cause a lag in our processing time, but it is a necessary step which will allow us to gain efficiencies, strengthen  processes, and improve outcomes over the coming years. Nearly 65,000 final benefit determination letters were issued this  fiscal year. The average time to issue a final benefit determination  increased to 4.3 years from 4.0 years in FY 2013. As we continue  to focus on issuing final benefit determination letters for our  oldest, largest and most complex plans with hard to value assets,  there will be an increase in the time to issue final benefit  determinations by several years.  There are nearly 257,000 participants in PBGC trusteed plans  who are still due a final benefit determination. While retired participants await their final benefit determination, PBGC ensures that they continue to receive estimated benefit payments each  month. This year 97 percent of PBGC’s final benefit  determinations are within 10 percent of the estimated payment  amount. Over the past five years, more than 90 percent of our estimated benefits have been within 10 percent of the final benefit determination.”