Your Pfizer Benefits & Career: Financial Planning for Employees and Executives

Do you work at Pfizer? Get the resources you need and expert insights from financial professionals who specialize in helping Pfizer employees make the most of their compensation package and benefits.

Whether you’re a new Pfizer employee or you’ve moved up the ranks into a management or executive leadership role over a multi-year career, it’s important to make smart money moves with your income and employee benefits. For example:

✅ Do you know the right moves to make to get the greatest value from the Pfizer benefits available to you?

✅If you’re thinking about leaving Pfizer for another job or planning to retire from the company in a few years, are you taking the right steps today to ensure you will receive all of the compensation and benefits that you’ve earned?

Get the Most Value from Your Pfizer Benefits and Compensation Package

Throughout the year, Pfizer provides its employees and executives with updates about their benefits ranging from health insurance and health savings plans to retirement plans like a 401(k), deferred compensation plans, and stock options. While the company offers many useful resources and access to knowledgeable staff who can assist with questions, you’ll also find financial professionals not affiliated with Pfizer who specialize in helping Pfizer employees make the most of their income and benefits.

Whether you work in the Pfizer headquarters in New York City, another office location around the country, or remotely from home, you may have questions about your compensation package and benefits better suited for a financial professional who can offer unbiased advice and guidance.

For example, sensitive topics like discussing the steps you should take before quitting your job at Pfizer to work elsewhere, protecting yourself in advance of a corporate layoff, or deciding when you should plan to retire are all conversations that may be more comfortable with a trusted financial advisor.

💡 In the Q&A below, you’ll gain insights from financial advisors who work with Pfizer employees to help them make smart decisions to get the most value from their compensation and benefits, reduce their money stress, and prepare for a comfortable retirement.

🙋‍♀️ Do you have questions not yet answered? Use the form below to submit questions anonymously and watch this article for updates with answers to your questions. You can also reach out to the financial advisors below to set up an introductory call or contact them with your questions by email.

💸 Smart Money Insights for Pfizer Employees & Executives

This page is organized into sections to help you quickly find the information you need and get answers to your questions:

1. Q&A: Financial Planning Tips for Pfizer Employees & Executives
2. Get Answers to Your Questions About Your Pfizer Benefits and Career
3. Browse Related Articles

Q&A: Financial Planning Tips for Pfizer Employees & Executives

Answers to Employee Questions with Brennan Decima, CFP®

Brennan Decima is a financial advisor based in St. Petersburg, Florida who specializes in offering financial planning services to Pfizer employees. Brennan helps his clients get the most value from their Pfizer benefits and compensation package so they can enjoy life and feel confident about their financial future.

Q: As a financial advisor with experience helping Pfizer employees save for their retirement, how do you help them make the most of their employee benefits?

Brennan: Pfizer has an extremely robust benefit and incentive package. Understanding the nuances can make a meaningful difference in what the colleague gets from the company. The PSP contribution limit set in open enrollment can have a material difference on whether or not the company matches all year. If this is done wrong both their contributions and company matches can be stopped early. We help Pfizer colleagues calculate their personalized trigger to avoid losing out on company match. We help them understand what percentage they need to contribute based off their personal trigger, maximize after tax, and make the most of their PSSP.

For colleagues eligible for TSRU, this can be difficult to calculate the value and how that value might be impacted based off previous stock prices. The TSRU grant is a calculation based off a moving average that I help them both calculate and model so they can decide if converting to a PTU makes sense.

The PRAP pension has reductions based off career milestones and age. We help colleagues determine what the pension reduction is if they leave at a certain age and then model their break even on lump sum compared to payments.

Rule of 90 has a significant impact on what benefits they are eligible for if the retire early. We help colleagues understand the cost of leaving at a particular date.

Q: When you first speak with a Pfizer employee, what questions do you like to ask to better understand their unique circumstances and determine how you can best help them achieve their goals?

Brennan: We believe that retirement is more than a Monte Carlo score and you are more than a number. We strive to understand you and your purpose in the next chapter.

What do you want to spend your attention, energy, time and money on in retirement? What is most important to you? What roadblocks are getting in the way of what’s most important to you? What support do you need along the way?

Investments and strategy are important, but we believe that understanding your purpose and intention first will allow us to create a more customized plan to serve your needs. A good doctor takes the time to understand the patient before prescribing treatment. Hopefully they don’t have financial incentives to prescribe one option over the other. We want to understand you, and we don’t have ties to a brokerage that could create conflicts of interest.

Q: Is there a particular benefit available to Pfizer employees you feel isn’t as well utilized or understood by employees as it should be?

Brennan: Pfizer has an after tax contribution option for the PSP. Many colleagues contribute, but they leave the gains growing tax deferred instead of tax free If they call the benefits department they can immediately have the contributions converted to a Roth going forward. The company also cuts off match to 401k when they hit the trigger. Many colleagues are unaware of how to calculate the trigger, and end up leaving match on the table.

Q: Beyond Pfizer employee benefits for retirement savings, are there other types of benefits offered by the company that you find valuable to discuss with your clients?

Brennan: Retiree Medical Savings benefit can substantially reduce health care costs in retirement. Understanding the Long Term Care group policy is a great way to supplement the RMS

Q: For Pfizer employees thinking about leaving the company to accept a job elsewhere, what actions do you recommend they take before resigning and shortly thereafter?

Brennan: Many of the notifications for life insurance and payroll are set up with company email, prior to leaving make sure you have changed the email on file. Before signing any paperwork, knowing what you are leaving on the table can help you better negotiate and evaluate your new offer. It Is critical to calculate the reduction in pension benefit based off their age, what vesting they would leave on the table, and when next milestones are. We review exactly what incentives would be left on the table, what that cost is, and if waiting until a particular date would make a material difference. This helps colleagues make informed decisions before making a career change.

Q: For Pfizer employees approaching retirement age, how do you recommend they prepare to make the transition from living off their salary to relying upon other sources of income?

Brennan: Going from decades of savings to now spending can be a huge mental shift. When you are working, you typically have a salary, a bonus, an emergency fund, and long term savings for the future. Then all of a sudden the future arrives, and that nest egg is asked to do all four of those jobs. That can be extremely stressful if there is not an intentional plan to create those buckets.

Monte Carlo is a great way to determine if you have saved enough, but it is not a prescription of what to do and how to do it. We bridge that gap. It starts with understanding what you want to accomplish in the next chapter, and what it costs to fund those dreams. We do a detailed cash flow model to see what amount of income would need to be created from savings, we then do a detailed review of their tax projections in retirement to determine the optimal amounts that should come from each account. Once we know what this looks like, we build a strategy that protects the cash flow, provides liquidity for surprises, and grows for the future. It is critical to understand what their ideal retirement looks like, budget what it would cost to fund that dream, and then build a plan to make it a reality.

Q: For Pfizer employees who have managed their finances on their own to this point, what would you suggest they consider to help them decide if they should begin working with a financial advisor at this stage in their lives?

Brennan: Many employees have worked incredibly hard to put them in a position to make the leap into retirement. Having someone who has helped hundreds of Pfizer colleagues retire can make a meaningful difference in their planning. Our team understands the significance of the milestones Pfizer has and how to use them to your advantage. The cost of making a mistake with your planning can be substantially more expensive than the cost of a second opinion.

Q: What are some of the unique financial planning challenges you commonly see among your clients who are Pfizer employees and how do you help them overcome these obstacles?

Brennan: Over the past few years, a tremendous amount of colleagues have been laid off. This can dramatically alter the plans for both the present and the future. We have extensive experience helping colleagues understand the severance, steps to take before the last day, and what to do when the payments. Many colleagues have accumulated large amounts of company stock. Understanding exposure to risk, and making sure they are not taking on more risk than they need or want to can go a long way towards peace of mind in retirement.

Q: What questions do you recommend Pfizer employees ask financial advisors they’re considering hiring to help them decide if they’re a good fit?

Brennan: Are you a fiduciary? Is your bonus or compensation tied to recommending brokerage products or annuities? Can you provide me a copy of your compensation disclosure that explains how you are paid, the fees I will be charged, and your conflicts of interest disclosure? Is your investment management built around my income needs or will I be in a model portfolio? How many clients are assigned to you? Will I primarily work with you or someone on your team? How often can I expect to hear from you?

Q: Is there anything that comes up frequently in your initial meeting with Pfizer employees that surprises you?

Brennan: There are a lot of wonderful benefits with small nuances that can change how much money the company deposits into your savings plan. It regularly see colleagues leave company match on the table because they don’t understand the trigger and how to calculate it. We want everyone to maximize their plan, and our goal is to evaluate what you are doing, what you are leaving on the table, and how you can improve that moving forward.

Q: For highly compensated Pfizer employees and executives, are there any special benefits you believe it’s important to take into consideration when preparing their financial plan?

Brennan: Every client we work with gets a detailed evaluation of their tax returns before we make any suggestions. It is common to see Pfizer colleagues who have paid underpayment penalties and interest on their taxes because they did not understand how withholding worked on the performance awards and RSU’s. We help them avoid this going forward. Maximizing the PSSP can also make a dramatic difference in their taxation. For highly compensated employees, we can help show you how to optimize the supplemental savings plan based off your tax situation and liquidity needs.

Q: Is there a particularly memorable experience or a moment you recall with a client who worked at Pfizer when you realized they have unique opportunities and circumstances when it comes to their financial planning needs?

Brennan: We have worked with many colleagues who were surprised by a layoff recently. A corporate lay off can be incredibly stressful both financially and mentally. Our goal is to help clarify what is happening with your benefits, adjusting your plan for the new reality, and optimizing your taxes so you aren’t blindsided. Many colleagues have their deferred compensation set to pay out as lump sum. With the recent severances, this meant a large payout was occurring at the same time an expedited vesting occurred. For many colleagues this put them in a higher tax rate when they left than when they initially deferred money. We help executives plan model out the tax impact of a career change today, and in the future so they can make necessary adjustments to lower their tax bill and avoid surprises.

Get to Know Brennan Decima, Financial Advisor for Pfizer Employees:

View Brennan’s profile page on Wealthtender or visit his website to learn more.

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