MA SERS Pension Present Value Calculator

This present value calculator provides the present value of Massachusetts State Employee Retirement System pensions. Couples who are divorcing are often required to document the present value of their pensions in order to achieve a fair division of the couple’s financial assets. Present value calculations translate the predicted value of a future stream of pension payments into the equivalent lump sum cash value that they would have today.

This PV calculator accounts for both mortality (rates at which people survive each year and collect more pension benefits) and interest rates, making thousands of calculations in a split second. You can see a sample pension present value report by clicking here. The report produced by this site shows, year-by-year, how interest and mortality discounting interact with pension benefits and cost of living adjustments. Actuaries, financial planners, and accountants generally charge $175-$225 to provide a present value.

You do not need to calculate your projected, future benefits for your MA SERS pension. This calculator does it for you, using formulas drawn directly from the MA SERS website. You simply need to enter information about years of service, age, salary, and projected retirement date. The calculator is designed to be used for  division of assets in divorce, so you will also need to enter your marriage date and when you began (and perhaps ended) participation in the pension plan. The calculator will provide with you a “coverture ratio”–the proportion of your pension plan participation during which you were married–and will calculate the dollar amount of the total present value that is “marital”, i.e., the part of the present value that belongs to the marriage. Generally, the marital portion of the pension is considered to belong jointly to the pension participant and non-participant spouse.

This calculator  has the standard MA SERS cost-of-living-adjustment (“COLA”) built into it: 3% of the first $13,000 of your pension each year, starting in the July benefit payments after you have been retired for 1 full year. (If you retire June 31, you wait 1 full year for the first application of COLA; if you retire July 1, you wait 2 full years before you receive a COLA.)

This calculator works for individuals who entered the MA SERS BEFORE April 2, 2012.

If you are a member of a different pension system, you can use this present value calculator on the homepage of this site. It requires you to contact your pension administrator and  find out what your projected monthly or annual benefit would be with your years of service at a given retirement age. If you are a Massachusetts Teachers’ Retirement System (MTRS) member, you can download this calculator form to figure out your projected monthly benefit.

You must make one entry in the calculator that may be confusing. In #11), you must enter the number of years and months of creditable service that you have TODAY. Even though you will have entered a planned retirement date in the future (e.g., age 60, 62, 65, etc.) under #7), for #11) you must enter the years and months of creditable service you have RIGHT NOW. This is because the calculator determines a PRESENT value of the pension, based only on years of service you have earned until now. (This idea is difficult because we usually use these calculators to estimate our monthly benefits based on the number of years of service we will have in the future, at retirement, not the number of years we have TODAY, pre-retirement.)

  Disclaimer. Before filling out the form, check this box to indicate that you understand and agree with the disclaimer below.

The information contained within this website is provided for informational purposes only and is not intended to substitute for obtaining professional legal or accounting advice. ValueYourPension.com is not associated with any lawyer, actuary, or accountant, and it does not provide legal or accounting advice. The results provided by this calculator are calculations that depend on assumptions about future interest rates, cost of living adjustments, and life expectancies as well as other numbers you enter into this calculator.

A. Optional information for .pdf report

B. Required information for coverture ratio ("marital portion") calculation

Yes No
Yes No

Questions 3) and 4) are designed to gather information about when you earned or purchased pension credits, in order to calculate what percent of your pension credits were earned during marriage. You can enter up to six different periods of work and indicate for each what percent of pension credit you were receiving ("Percent of full-time credit earning"). For many pensions, the amount of pension credit you earn is prorated for part-time work. Thus, if you work 80% time, you might earn 80% of the normal pension credit for that period of work.

Only enter work periods when you were earning pension credits. For example, if you have worked 40% time and working 40% time does not earn pension credits from your employer, do not include this work period here.

You can enter pension credits (typically "years of service") that you have purchased under 4).










  Allow me to enter more periods of work













C. Required information for present value calculation

 



Please report any bugs to me and please pass along suggestions on how to make it more comprehensive or user-friendly: [email protected]

Below is the information you have input and the corresponding monthly and annual pension benefit amounts. To make changes, simply scroll up and make changes, then press "Confirm my inputs" again.
Years of participation in pension:
Years of marriage during pension participation:
Projected age at retirement:
Mortality Table:
Predicted COLA:

Years of Creditable Service:
Allowable % of Salary Average:
Average Annual Salary:
Veteran Bonus:

Calculated monthly and annual pension benefits based on your inputs:

Monthly Pension Benefit Amount:
Annual Pension Benefit Amount:

To make any changes to what you have input, simply scroll up, make changes, and click the CONFIRM MY INPUTS button again.

Age Year Basic annual pension payment before any cost of living adjust (COLA), if any Cost of living adjustment (COLA), if any
Please pay with A) a coupon code or B) through PayPal
A present value pension valuation and report costs $35. The next best price on the web for an instant present value calculation is $175. You can pay with a credit card or PayPal. If the calculator does not work properly for you, email me for a full refund.

A) To pay with a coupon code:

    i) Enter your coupon code
    ii) Click the blue “APPLY” button
    iii) Click the large green button “GIVE ME THE PRESENT VALUE”.

B) If you do not have a coupon code, i) purchase the number of calculations you desire through PayPal, and then ii) click the large green button “GIVE ME THE PRESENT VALUE”:

Paypal can take up to a minute to process your payment. If the button "These inputs are correct. Give me the present value" does not respond, please wait and then try again.
Results
Present value of pension as of :
Marital portion of present value of pension:
Coverture ratio (percent of the pension participation time during which you were married):
Years of participation in pension:
Years of marriage during pension participation:
Projected age at retirement:
Mortality Table:
Predicted COLA:

Years of Creditable Service:
Allowable % of Salary Average:
Average Annual Salary:
Veteran Bonus:

Calculated monthly and annual pension benefits based on your inputs:

Monthly Pension Benefit Amount:
Annual Pension Benefit Amount:


Age Year during which Age starts Partial Year Gross Annual Benefit Dollar value of annual COLA in Gross Annual Benefit Interest discount rate Probability of Surviving each year Present Value of Annual Benefit