Employee Retirement Benefit Plans

12 Months Ended

Dec. 31, 2018

15. Employee Retirement Benefit Plans

(a) Overview

Alleghany and certain of its subsidiaries provide a variety of retirement benefits. Alleghany provides supplemental retirement benefits through deferred compensation programs and profit sharing plans for certain of its parent company-level officers and employees. In addition, Alleghany’s subsidiaries sponsor both qualified, defined contribution retirement plans for substantially all employees, including executives, and

non-qualified

plans only for executives, some of which provide for voluntary salary reduction contributions by employees and matching contributions by each respective subsidiary, subject to specified limitations.

Alleghany has endorsement split-dollar life insurance policies for its parent company-level officers that are effective during employment, as well as retirement. Premiums are paid by Alleghany and death benefits are split between Alleghany and the beneficiaries of the officers. Death benefits for current employees that inure to the beneficiaries are generally equal to four times the annual salary at the time of an officer’s death. After retirement, death benefits that inure to the beneficiaries are generally equal to the annual salary of the officer as of the date of retirement.

In addition, Alleghany, TransRe and W&W|AFCO Steel have defined benefit pensions plans for certain of their employees, as further described below.

These employee retirement plans are not material to Alleghany’s results of operations, financial condition or cash flows for the three years ended December 31, 2018.

(b) Parent Company-Level

Alleghany has an unfunded, noncontributory defined benefit pension plan for parent company-level executives, which was frozen as of December 31, 2013, and a funded, noncontributory defined benefit pension plan for parent company-level employees. The projected benefit obligations of the defined benefit pension plans as of December 31, 2018 and 2017 was $32.3 million and $34.1 million, respectively, and the related fair value of plan assets was $3.3 million and $3.4 million, respectively.

TransRe has an unfunded, noncontributory defined benefit plan and a funded noncontributory defined benefit plan for certain of its employees in the U.S. Benefits under TransRe’s defined benefit plans were frozen as of December 31, 2009. As of December 31, 2018 and 2017, the projected benefit obligation was $65.5 million and $71.8 million, respectively, and the related fair value of plan assets was $49.1 million and $52.4 million, respectively.

(d) W&W

AFCO Steel

W&W|AFCO Steel has a funded noncontributory defined benefit plan for certain of its employees. Benefits under W&W|AFCO Steel’s defined benefit plans were frozen as of April 1, 2003. During 2018, W&W|AFCO Steel initiated a plan termination, whereby the obligations related to plan participants currently receiving benefits were annuitized through the purchase of annuity contracts from a third-party life insurance company, and certain other employees were offered lump sum distributions. As of December 31, 2018 and 2017, the projected benefit obligation was $10.0 million and $23.2 million, respectively, and the related fair value of plan assets was $11.7 million and $14.0 million, respectively.