Pension plan freeze requires a named plan, population, date, and evidence owner. A freeze stops specified future benefit accruals for a stated population. It changes the plan's forward terms but leaves benefits already earned within the obligation.
Apply it
A hard freeze can stop both service and pay-related accruals after its effective date. The actuary remeasures the remaining promise; the existing PBO is not written off.
Common mistake
Do not assume that calling a plan frozen automatically proves a curtailment. A freeze changes specified accrual terms; apply the curtailment test separately to the actual event and affected service. That error would apply special-event accounting from a label without testing what service or accruals actually changed.
Keep the boundary clear
Freeze is a plan-design label. Test curtailment, settlement, termination-benefit, and remeasurement consequences separately from executed terms and current guidance.
Authority
Read ASC 715-30-35-92 for the prior-service effect of a curtailment. A freeze still needs a separate curtailment analysis.
Put the concept to work
Apply this concept
- Explain and apply pension plan freeze within a reconciled employer benefit-plan workpaper using supplied authoritative and actuarial facts.
Learning resources
Choose a lesson, try an application, or inspect the sources behind this concept.
Build on these ideas
- Pension plan amendment — Apply
To apply this concept: Required. This prior concept supplies the terms, date, or measurement needed here.