Now, before we discuss how your plan's termination will affect your retirement benefits, we would like to introduce a few terms we will be using that you may not be familiar with.
When we say "Form of Benefit," we are referring to how long and to whom retirement benefits are paid.
A "Straight Life Annuity" is a Form of Benefit that provides payments to one person for his or her lifetime with no survivor benefits.
A "Joint and 65% Survivor Annuity" is a Form of Benefit that provides reduced payments to a retiree for his or her lifetime, and 65% of those payments to his or her beneficiary if he or she outlives the retiree.
A "Joint and 65% Survivor Pop-Up Annuity" is a Joint and 65% Survivor Annuity that increases, or "pops-up" to the amount of the Straight Life Annuity if the retiree outlives the beneficiary. That is, the reduction for the survivor payments goes away if the beneficiary dies before the retiree.
A form of benefit is "level" if the payments are the same amount every month. If the benefit increases or decreases at any point after the payments begin, other than when survivor benefits become payable, the benefit is "non-level."
The "Normal Retirement Date" for your plan is the first day of the month after you reach age 65. This is the date as of which you could retire with an unreduced Basic Benefit, no matter how long you have been working for the company.
