Spring Consulting Group has landed a US patent covering a business method for alternative funding of employee and retiree benefits.
The US Patent and Trademark Office awarded the patent to Spring Consulting on 25 December. The named inventor is the company’s managing partner, Karin Landy.
Landy’s invention is a computer implemented system and method for configuring, optimising, managing and tracking alternative funding of employee and retiree benefits and benefit plans.
The patent says: “[T]he present invention provides a method for funding benefits by maintaining assets in an investment program comprising, an employer or employee owned trust account and at least one life insurance contract obtained directly or indirectly from a captive insurance company.”
“The life insurance contract is purchased with assets from the trust account and the captive insurance company is a least partially owned by the employer. When paying or reimbursing benefits, the employer or the trust may pay the benefit and if the employer pays the benefit, the trust may reimburse the employer.”
The invention also allows the trust or the captive to invest its assets in commercially available vehicles to generate additional assets, according to the patent.
Spring Consulting was granted another patent for funding retirement and pension benefits through a captive on 25 September.
The company owns patents for funding other benefits, including retiree medical through a captive.
In a statement that was released in October, Landy said that there is more than a trillion dollars of defined benefit pensions liabilities in the US, but much of it is in closed or frozen plans.
“Our patented approach to restructuring the funding of these assets creates very strong financial statement improvements compared to traditional annuitisation.”
