Jim Robbins, the president of East Dover Construction Company, has requested your advice in setting up a defined benefit pension plan for eligible employees in the company. Jim founded the company 17 years ago and now has 200 employees, most of whom are under 35 years of age. Due to the nature of the work and ongoing management difficulties, tenure among the employees has averaged under two years. Jim has just fired the managers who were creating problems, but turnover is likely to remain high due to ongoing morale problems. Jim's current salary is $300,000, and he wants the plan to provide him with annual retirement income of $100,000 per year. He expects to retire in 13 years, at age 64.

Which one of the following statements describes information you need to convey to Jim about factors that could affect the amount of his retirement benefit?

One method of increasing the retirement benefit paid to him is by integrating the plan using the offset method.

If the plan investments outperform expectations, he will receive the largest allocation of the excess earnings.

The excess integration method could be used to increase the amount of plan benefit in retirement.

Using a flat benefit formula will provide Jim a larger benefit than would a unit benefit formula.