Plans

The Corporation's retirement plans include a qualified defined benefit pension plan, a nonqualified pension plan, a nonqualified postretirement benefit plan, a 401(k) savings plan, and a multi-employer defined benefit plan.

Qualified Defined Benefit Pension Plan

The Chemical Financial Corporation Employees’ Pension Plan (the "Pension Plan") is a qualified defined-benefit, noncontributory pension plan, which provides for postretirement pension benefits for certain salaried employees of the Corporation and its subsidiary, Chemical Bank. Benefits under the Pension Plan were partially frozen effective June 30, 2006. Under the partial freeze of the Pension Plan, benefits for employees with less than 15 years of service or whose combined age plus years of service were less than 65 at June 30, 2006, were based on years of vested service at June 30, 2006 and generally the average of the employee's salary for the five years ended June 30, 2006. In addition, no employee hired after January 1, 2006 was eligible to participate in the Pension Plan. Effective September 30, 2017, the Pension and Compensation Committee approved an amendment to the Pension Plan to cease accruing additional benefits under the existing pension benefit formula after the effective date and all accrued benefits were frozen. Retirement benefits under the Pension Plan are based on years of vested service at September 30, 2017, up to a maximum of thirty years, and the employee's average annual pay for the five highest consecutive years during the ten years preceding September 30, 2017, except for employees whose benefits were previously frozen during 2006.

Pension Plan benefits are the present value of estimated future periodic payments that are attributable to services rendered by the employees to the valuation date. Benefits include the benefits expected to be paid to (a) retired or terminated employees or their beneficiaries and (b) present employees or their beneficiaries. A discount rate of 4.32% was utilized for the projected benefit obligation as of March 31, 2019. The Pension Plan is fully funded as of March 31, 2019.

Nonqualified Pension Plan

The Corporation has a supplemental defined benefit nonqualified pension plan, the Chemical Financial Corporation Supplemental Pension Plan ("SERP"). The Corporation established the SERP to provide payments to certain executive officers of the Corporation, as determined by the Compensation and Pension Committee. The Internal Revenue Code limits both the amount of eligible compensation for benefit calculation purposes and the amount of annual benefits that may be paid from a tax qualified retirement plan. The SERP was designed to provide benefits to executive officers of the Corporation that would have been entitled, calculated under the provisions of the Pension Plan, as if the limits imposed by the Internal Revenue Code did not apply. The SERP is an unfunded plan and, therefore, has no assets.

Effective September 30, 2017, the Pension and Compensation Committee approved a curtailment to the SERP due to the retirement of the final remaining participant in the SERP. As of March 31, 2019, a $0.3 million liability included in other liabilities was recorded in the Consolidated Statements of Financial Position related to a former participant of the SERP. As of March 31, 2019, the SERP had no active participants.

Nonqualified Postretirement Benefit Plan

The Corporation has a nonqualified postretirement benefit plan ("Postretirement Plan") that provides medical and dental benefits, upon retirement, to a limited number of active and retired employees. The majority of the retirees are required to make contributions toward the cost of their benefits based on their years of credited service and age at retirement. Beginning January 1, 2012, the Corporation amended the Postretirement Plan to extend coverage to employees who were at least age 50 as of January 1, 2012. These employees must also retire at age 60 or older, have at least twenty-five years of service with the Corporation and be participating in the active employee group health insurance plan in order to be eligible to participate in the Corporations' Postretirement Plan. Eligible employees may also cover their spouse until age 65 as long as the spouse is not offered health insurance coverage through his or her employer. Employees and their spouses eligible to participate in the Postretirement Plan will be required to make contributions toward the cost of their benefits upon retirement, with the contribution levels designed to cover the projected overall cost of these benefits over the long-term. Retiree contributions are generally adjusted annually. The accounting for these postretirement benefits anticipates changes in future cost-sharing features such as retiree contributions, deductibles, copayments and coinsurance. The Corporation reserves the right to amend, modify or terminate these benefits at any time.

The components of net periodic benefit cost for the Corporation’s qualified and nonqualified pension plans and nonqualified postretirement benefit plan are as follows:



	Three Months Ended March 31,
(Dollars in thousands)	2019			2018
Defined Benefit Pension Plans
Interest cost	$	1,172		$	1,092
Expected return on plan assets	(2,190		)	(2,220		)
Amortization of unrecognized net loss	141			178
Net periodic benefit cost (income)⁽¹⁾	$	(877	)	$	(950	)
Postretirement Benefit Plan
Service cost⁽²⁾	$	—		$	1
Interest cost	21			20
Amortization of unrecognized net gain	(45		)	(36		)
Net periodic benefit cost (income)⁽¹⁾	$	(24	)	$	(15	)


⁽¹⁾	Net periodic benefit cost (income), excluding service cost is included "Other" operating expenses on the Consolidated Statements of Income.


⁽²⁾	Service cost is included in "Salaries, wages and employee benefits expense" on the Consolidated Statements of Income.

401(k) Savings Plan

The Corporation's 401(k) Savings Plan is available to all employees and provides employees with tax deferred salary deductions and alternative investment options. Effective January 1, 2018, the Corporation provides a safe harbor matching contribution of the participants elective deferrals up to a maximum of 6.0% of eligible compensation up to the maximum amount allowed under the Internal Revenue Code. The Corporation's match under the 401(k) Savings Plan was $2.4 million and $2.8 million for the three months ended March 31, 2019 and 2018, respectively.

The 401(k) Savings Plan provides employees with the option to invest in the Corporation's common stock.