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Reduced premiums for Optional Life Insurance plans

CBC employees who have enrolled in the voluntary life insurance plans can expect a break on their premiums later this year. The optional life, reducing term and dependent life insurance plans have surpluses and sufficient reserves to lower the rates by 35 per cent, beginning on September 1. The Consultative Committee on Staff Benefits (CCSB) has approved three years’ worth of reductions, but we will review those reductions on an annual basis to make sure it’s still prudent to keep those reduced rates in effect. We also will be reviewing the dependent life insurance policy in September to see what improvements can be made.

Changes to funds in the CBC Group RRSPs
Members of the Group RRSP will be seeing a change in some of their investment options within the next few weeks. The three McLean Budden funds (Balanced, Canadian Equity and Fixed Income) will be replaced by three Fidelity funds with similar investment mandates. The CBC Pension Board of Trustees implemented the same change this spring for its FlexPlan members.

The decision to drop McLean Budden is based on a couple of things: ownership of McLean Budden changed hands and there were significant changes in the investment fund managers; and McLean Budden’s performance on the equity side has lagged for several years.

Fidelity’s investment management fees are in line with McLean Budden’s for the fixed income and Canadian Equity funds, and about 0.5% higher for the Balanced fund. That said, the fees for all the funds offered in the Group RRSP are lower than the management fees you would pay to buy mutual funds for your RRSP individually.

CBC merging pension plan for part-time employees with main plan

The CBC is implementing a major change in the pension plan for part-time employees, and it’s about time. Part Two of the plan, which was set up for part-time employees, is being merged with the regular plan. The CCSB has been looking for a change along these lines for many years. Not only will there be an improvement in the retirement benefits for part-time employees, there also will be more opportunities to buy back part-time service. The changes are a bit complicated, but the CBC says it will be providing more detailed information to affected employees later this month.

The CBC also has finished rewriting the plan to reorganize sections and reflect various changes in federal pension law. It is probably the first significant revision of the plan since it started 51 years ago. Since then, every amendment has been tacked on in a piecemeal fashion, which has made the legal text of the plan rather difficult to read. The corporation insists no benefits to plan members have been reduced as a result of the rewrite.

Your representatives at the June CCSB:
Carrie Bradshaw
Bob Fisher
Jon Soper
Gabi Durocher
Glenn Gray

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