I would be more concerned with actual compensation than the percent of target, personally. If they want to set unreasonable targets and pay out 60% of target bonus every year but my W-2 looks good (either because my target bonus and/or salary is high) then I don’t especially care.
And of course the intangibles like is my boss a giant tool, do I have a good work-life balance, etc.
Bonus is usually a significant portion of take home pay for all FSA/FCAS
Define significant.
I’d rather have a higher base pay and a lower bonus. Less risk.
I mean, over the course of my career I’ve had my bonus(es) represent literally anywhere from 1 to 60% of my total pay. One of my most lucrative jobs was the one with the 1% bonus. And I don’t think I ever got more than a 3% cash bonus at my absolute most lucrative job, although they put a much higher percent into a retirement plan. Probably the third best paying job was the one where my bonuses exceeded my salary, although that wasn’t an actuarial job. It’s just all over the map.
My point is that there’s very little relevance to how they define your pay. It’s far more relevant how much they’re actually paying you. If all you’re looking at is the percent of target bonus that they’re paying then I think you’re focusing on the wrong thing. What you’re bringing in matters much more than what they call it.
And percent of target is even less relevant than the percent of your pay. If my target bonus is 30% of my $150,000 salary and I get 50% of my target bonus and your target bonus is 6% of your $90,000 salary and you get 110% of your target bonus you’re telling me that you are way better off than me because I got 50% of target and you got 110% of target???
If anything I’d rather have no bonus and have it all be salary. Then I know I’m getting it. I get that bonuses can be motivating and thus they are a useful management tool, so I don’t object to them. But I don’t get hung up on them either.
Same.
I don’t factor in my bonus as a part of my salary when I budget. So when I get it, it feels even better. If I don’t get as much of it, it’s still more than I expected.
Same. But for some odd reason the job offers I have gotten with higher salaries have always come with higher bonuses. It makes the dedication much easier for me.
And I cannot tell if twig is trolling me. Of course total compensation is more important.
10% as a student and bumped up to 15% at ASA when I was promoted to Senior Donkey
Now at a cool crisp 20% as a FSA with 6 years exp and 0 direct reports. I wonder how much my boss makes
Our bonuses are set by pay band and are company-wide. New FSA’s are likely to get a bonus in the 4% to 6% range. Mine is 10%, as an FSA with 13 years. Next promotion will have me at 15%.
Last job/company, bonus was 15%.
Anyway no not ALL credentialed actuaries have bonuses that comprise a significant portion of their pay.
I prefer my 10% bonus to a 15% bonus. I make about 30% more with this job than the last one, which is steady and guaranteed income.
I couldn’t tell if you thought that when you argued my point that total compensation was more important than percent of target bonus paid.
I’m in a non traditional position.
Bonus can be up to 35%, but easily 0% if less than a certain % of target. With 100% target at 25%.
Same.
In good years I get a nice chunk of change around now. In years when there are a lot of cats, etc., I still get a comfortable salary and my employer helps alleviate suffering, and I feel good about working in the p&c industry.
When I do monthly budget it seems like I’m living slightly above paycheck to paycheck (with 6 figs), and feel like I’m not saving much money (ignoring 401K and some recurring stock purchases). But when the bonus comes it’s like “oh that’s my savings”.
I put three kids through college mostly off my bonuses. It was very nervous times not knowing how much it would be.
So much more relaxed now, it is all gravy
At my current job we don’t get cash bonuses, but we do get RSU grants that can be very large relative to base salary. My grant started at ~40% of base, but with stock appreciation has ballooned to >70% of base. Its crazy having so much volatility. Like my comp could just as easily nosedive if the stock tanks.
Same here.
I use my bonus for debt reduction. A couple of more years and I can stop that and dump all of it into savings. 1 year is going to a new roof for the house though.
Same here. My employer (Humana) honestly seems to care about these things. We make changes every year based on the engagement surveys. They also have slowly gotten better over time. The results have born out on Glassdoor as well. It has gone from. 2.9 star rated company in the early 2010’s to a 4.0 star rated company now.
As for bonuses we instituted one when the tax cuts were put in place. At my level the base is 15% and then my performance is a multiplier that can fall between 80% and 120%. The company performance is another multiplier. This year that one was 148%. In the 3 years there has been a bonus that number has been 139%, 151%, and 148%. I am a team lead. Sr. Producers get 10% base and juniors get a 6%-8% base.
This is the exactly type of journalism we need. Thank you for your service
We’re roughly 70/30 company/individual, percentage depends on your pay level. I think I’m 15% max, but somehow this year ended up being more than 15%. (Not complaining.) In past years, I could count on a pittance or $0 - did some looking up, this year’s bonus exceeds everything I got for a bonus over the prior 12 years combined, so this time around it really is holy shit, we’ve got money, what do we do with it?
This time around, it will largely go toward home improvements, more “this is the 5th year here, this is the kind of stuff we want to change and this is stuff we need to take care of” kind of things. Would like to do that for a couple years, we’ll see how things play out.
As a career ACAS non-manager I’m getting a bonus of about 15% and stock/options worth another 10%. Although these can vary some from year to year our company and unit is fairly stable so I haven’t seen it move much. I do wish it were tied to some metrics so it would be more of a known quantity as I have seen in some other companies but I’m happy it’s relatively stable