For all payment forms except Joint Life & Social Security Level Income payment forms, the Conversion from Normal Form topic offers the options below.

Convert from normal form using: provides four main choices for converting the payment form:

• N/A: Unreduced normal form indicates that there is no reduction to the benefit. This option is not available for the following payment form types: Pop-up Annuity, Certain & Pop-Up Annuity, Custom contingent joint life Annuity, Social Security Level Income and Joint Life & Social Security Level Income

If Available only for spouse beneficiaries is checked, the unreduced form of payment is only available to members for whom their spouse is beneficiary per the beneficiary type defined in the Census Specifications Beneficiary Data.

• Plan’s actuarial equivalence indicates that the conversion is based on the actuarial equivalence set under the Plan Definition plan attributes.

• Alternative actuarial equivalence allows you to specify a different actuarial equivalence than the one set up under the Plan Definition plan attributes. Once selected, the multi-choice field allows you to select any entry from the actuarial equivalence library that is available in the current Project . 

Please note:  This option was designed to be used with lump sum payment forms.  If it is used with a different type of payment form, a warning message ("Alternative actuarial equivalence may give undesirable results.") will be generated on execution because, for purposes of the conversion factor, while the specified payment form will be valued on the alternative actuarial equivalence basis, the normal form of payment will be valued on the plan's actuarial equivalence basis.  If a plan requires multiple actuarial equivalence bases, the correct results are typically obtained by specifying the plan actuarial equivalence by coded field or Benefit Definition.  For your protection, a warning of this nature is also provided at the time alternative actuarial equivalence is selected in the dialog box.

• Table lookup allows you to specify a table of factors to determine the payment form value. Once selected, a multi-choice field becomes available that allows you to select from the conversion table library entries unhidden in the current Project .

If you have selected a Certain & Pop-Up Annuity payment form type, you will need to set two (2) tables, where the table descriptors and the order the tables are requested is in accordance with the way the calculation is performed.  The first determination is the pop-up factor using the Pop-Up conversion table lookup, and the second determination is the certain period factor using the certain period conversion table lookup.

For minimum actuarial equivalence and other conversion from normal form parameters, see Conversion from Normal Form.