13.	EMPLOYEE RETIREMENT PLANS

Defined Benefit Pension and OPEB Welfare Plans

The Company sponsors and contributes to pension plans (“Pension Plans”) and other post-retirement benefit (“OPEB”) plans covering many of our United States employees, in whole or in part based on meeting certain eligibility criteria. In addition, the Company and its subsidiaries have various pension plans and other forms of post-retirement arrangements outside the United States, namely in Canada and Taiwan.

The Pension Plans provide benefits to certain employees and retirees and are closed to new hires. Effective January 31, 2014, amendments to the Pension Plans for United States non‑bargained employees froze all future benefit accruals for non‑bargained employees who were not already frozen. The financial impact of these amendments to the Pension Plans was recognized in the fourth quarter of 2013.

The OPEB plans are unfunded and provide medical and life insurance benefits for certain employees and their dependents.

Recently approved amendments to the OPEB plans were made to further deliver retiree medical benefits through health reimbursements account contributions and to further limit life insurance benefits. Effective January 1, 2016, the majority of Medicare and non-Medicare eligible retirees will receive retiree medical benefits through health reimbursement account contributions. In addition, effective January 1, 2016, most life insurance benefits for non-bargained retirees were eliminated and a sunset period was provided for life insurance benefits for the majority of other retirees. These OPEB benefit changes were approved and communicated to participants in August 2015 and the quantitative financial impact is reflected beginning in the third quarter of 2015. These changes reduced the OPEB benefit obligation by $29.8 million and the resulting prior service credit will be amortized through 2025.

In connection with the OPEB plan amendments, the benefit obligation was remeasured using current assumptions as of that date, including the SOA mortality tables “RPH-2014” and an alternative generational improvement scale published by the SOA “BB-2D”. The discount rate used to remeasure the OPEB plan obligation, at September 1, 2015 was 3.59 percent compared to 3.90 percent at December 31, 2014.

In the third quarter of 2015, we changed the method we use to estimate the service and interest components of net periodic benefit cost for U.S. pension and other postretirement benefits. This new estimation approach discounts the individual expected cash flows underlying the service cost and interest cost using the applicable spot rates derived from the yield curve used to discount the cash flows used to measure the benefit obligation. Historically, we estimated these service and interest cost components utilizing a single weighted-average discount rate derived from the yield curve used to measure the benefit obligation at the beginning of the period.

We have made this change to provide a more precise measurement of service and interest costs by improving the correlation between projected benefit cash flows to the corresponding spot yield curve rates. We have accounted for this change as a change in accounting estimate that is inseparable from a change in accounting principle and accordingly have accounted for it prospectively. While the benefit obligation measured under this approach is unchanged, the more granular application of the spot rates will reduce the service and interest cost for the OPEB plan for the last four months of fiscal 2015 by $0.2 million. For the OPEB plan, the spot rates used to determine service and interest costs ranged from 0.65 percent to 5.01 percent and 0.65 percent to 5.01 percent, respectively. Under the Company’s prior methodology, these rates would have resulted in weighted-average rates for service and interest costs of 3.59 percent and 3.59 percent, respectively. The new approach will be used to measure the service and interest cost for our other US pension plans in 2016. Based on current economic conditions, we estimate the service cost and interest cost for those plans will be reduced by approximately $7.0 million in 2016 as a result of the change.

The following tables detail the pension and postretirement benefit income, including the effect of the OPEB remeasurement for the three and nine month periods ended September 30, 2015 and 2014:

	Pensions Three Months Ended September 30,						OPEB Benefits Three Months Ended September 30,
(In millions)	2015			2014			2015			2014
Components of net periodic benefit income:
Interest cost	$	(7.7	)	$	(7.9	)	$	(0.9	)	$	(1.1	)
Service cost		(1.1	)		(0.9	)		(0.2	)		(0.2	)
Expected return on assets		11.4			11.8			-			-
Amortization of:
Prior service credit		-			-			2.5			2.2
Actuarial gain (loss)		(0.7	)		0.1			-			-
Total net periodic benefit income	$	1.9		$	3.1		$	1.4		$	0.9

	Pensions Nine Months Ended September 30,						OPEB Benefits Nine Months Ended September 30,
(In millions)	2015			2014			2015			2014
Components of net periodic benefit income:
Interest cost	$	(23.1	)	$	(23.7	)	$	(3.1	)	$	(3.3	)
Service cost		(3.3	)		(2.7	)		(0.6	)		(0.6	)
Expected return on assets		34.2			35.4			-			-
Amortization of:
Prior service credit		-			-			7.1			6.8
Actuarial gain (loss)		(2.1	)		0.3			-			-
Total net periodic benefit income	$	5.7		$	9.3		$	3.4		$	2.9

Contributions

There were no significant contributions to the pension plan trusts during the three and nine months ended September 30, 2015 and 2014. We estimate that we will make payments of approximately $1.9 million for benefit payments and contributions related to our Pension Plans and $8.9 million for benefit payments related to OPEB plans for the year ending December 31, 2015.

Defined Contribution Plans

Most of our employees are covered by defined contribution plans under which we make contributions to individual employee accounts. Our expense related to our defined contribution plans was approximately $3.6 million and $3.4 million for the three months ended September 30, 2015 and 2014, respectively, and $10.9 million and $10.8 million for the nine months ended September 30, 2015 and 2014, respectively.