relevant measure as this is the amount received by participants when they initiate permitted transactions under the terms of the Plan.
The interest crediting rates for Synthetic GICs are calculated on a quarterly basis using the contract value, market value, yield and duration of the underlying securities, but cannot be less than zero.
Synthetic GICs generally are evergreen contracts that contain termination provisions, allowing the fund or the contract issuer to terminate with notice, at any time at fair value, and providing for automatic termination of the contract if the contract value or the fair value of the underlying portfolio equals zero. The issuer is obligated to pay the excess contract value when the fair value of the underlying portfolio equals zero.
There are certain events not initiated by the Plan participants that could limit the ability of the Plan to transact with the issuer at contract value. Examples of such events include, but are not limited to: material amendments to the Plan documents or administration; changes to the Plan’s competing investment options including the elimination of equity wash provisions; bankruptcy of the Plan sponsor or other events that would cause a significant withdrawal from the Plan; full or partial termination of the Plan; failure of the Plan to qualify for exemption from federal income taxes or any required prohibited transaction exemption under ERISA; any change in tax code, laws or regulations applicable to the Plan and delivery of any communication to Plan participants designed to influence participants not to invest in the fund. The Plan sponsor does not believe that the occurrence of any of these events, which would limit the Plan’s ability to transact with the issuer at its contract value, is probable.
Additionally, the fund also invests in a common collective trust fund, Wells Fargo/BlackRock Short Term Investment Fund S, which invests in highly liquid assets and is used for daily liquidity needs.
Risks arise when entering into any investment contract due to the potential inability of the issuer to meet the terms of the contract. In addition, security‐backed investment contracts and separate account guaranteed investment contracts have the risk of default or the lack of liquidity of the underlying portfolio assets. The credit risk of each issuer is evaluated and monitored through the portfolio manager’s credit analysis. The credit analysis includes, but is not limited to, asset quality and liquidity, management quality, surplus adequacy, and profitability. The Plan requires that the issuers of each contract have a minimum quality rating as of the contract effective date and that all underlying portfolio assets be rated investment grade at the time of purchase.
4. Fair Value Measurements
For purposes of the Plan’s financial reporting, fair value is defined as the price that would be received from selling an asset or paid to transfer a liability in an orderly transaction between market participants at the measurement date. When measuring assets and liabilities that are required to be recorded at fair value, the Plan considers the principal or most advantageous market in which the Plan would transact. Fair value is estimated by applying the following hierarchy, which prioritizes the inputs used to measure fair value into three levels and bases the categorization within the hierarchy upon the lowest level of input that is available and significant to the fair value measurement:
Level 1 — Quoted prices in active markets for identical assets or liabilities.
Level 2 — Observable inputs other than quoted prices in active markets for identical assets and liabilities, quoted prices for identical or similar assets or liabilities in inactive markets, or other inputs that are observable or can be corroborated by observable market data for substantially the full term of the assets or liabilities.
Level 3 — Inputs that are generally unobservable and typically reflect the Plan’s estimate of assumptions that market participants would use in pricing the asset or liability. The Plan had no Level 3 assets as of December 31, 2020 or 2019.
We use valuation techniques that maximize the use of observable inputs and minimize the use of unobservable inputs. In measuring the fair value of our assets and liabilities, we use market data or assumptions that we believe market participants would use in pricing an asset or liability, including assumptions about risk when appropriate.