<prompt> Human: I am 50 years old. Here are my 3 options:A. Lump sum of 19,813.93, which I was planning on rolling over to my IRA.B. 74.47 a month starting in July 2015.C. 278.52 a month, starting at age 65, March 2030.  <response>: Retirement actuary here. A lot of misinformation in other comments. I will address this from a US perspective.First, my recommendation: I would look at your retirement plan and see if it includes acquiring some lifetime income. Getting an annuity from your former employer will likely be the cheapest way you can produce lifetime income from your own funds. If you plan to take part of a DCIRA account balance and buy an annuity from an insurer, for example, that will almost certainly be more expensive than the employer annuity. What I mean is, you could take that same 19,813.93 and give it to an insurer and ask them to pay you an amount at 65, and that amount would be significantly less than 278.52.The July 2015 age 50 option is interesting, but its kind of harsh. Get in touch with your employer and find out if you would have been eligible for a retirement at age 55 or 60 or something as well that they conveniently arent telling you about. If so, my guess is youll have a much kinder reduction factor by waiting until that eligibility than taking the 74.47. A very common reduction factor is 50 at age 55, for example.Edit: A couple reasons this could be happening:1. OPs employer is worried about paying rising PBGC premiums These are premiums they have to pay for you and any unfunded liability you generate for the rest of the time OP is a participant in the plan. Because OPs lump sum is over a minimum, they have to get OP to take this offer; they cant just cash OP out immediately.2. OPs employer wants to remove some pension liability for another reason, probably accounting costs. Its expensive to do this, but once done, its gone.3. OPs employer is scared that the IRS may adopt some form of the new mortality tables for pension plans which would cause lump sum values to increase, making a similar program more expensive in a few years.4. OPs employer may be starting down the path of plan termination. Standard plan terminations have basically no impact on former employees like OP.The insolvency issue is not likely the problem. Paying out lump sums costs more than just funding the plan in most cases, and even if they were insolvent, theyd just be trying to punt the plan over to the PBGC. OP doesnt sound like he would lose anything from a PBGC takeover not near PBGC max, no plan amendments benefiting OP in the most recent 5 years, etc.. Also, if OPs employer is going insolvent, a lump sum window like this will make it worse, not better, because of pension funding rules. 