A year after a handful of companies tested the waters with a bold change in accounting policy for pension plans, they remain outliers, with no takers following their lead.

Only six companies have taken steps in the past year to hasten the recognition of pent-up losses in their defined benefit pension plans, according to an analysis by Ken Stoler, a partner with PwC's human resource services group. Stoler said during a recent webcast that the majority of them have given up the smoothing provisions permitted in U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles to immediately recognize changes in pension values directly in earnings. One company opted instead for a hybrid approach, narrowing the corridor of gains or losses that would be smoothed while immediately recognizing losses on those outside the corridor.

Companies like Honeywell and AT&T led the way late in 2010 by adopting changes in accounting policy that would abandon the smoothing techniques permitted in GAAP. Those mechanisms allow companies to smooth over pension-related gains or losses to minimize the volatility in recognize earnings. To adopt such a change in accounting policy, companies need to secure an agreement with their auditors that the new policy is preferable to the prior policy. The Securities and Exchange Commission has held silent so far on the changes at those public companies that have adopted the new approach.

Stoler said most defined benefit plans have pent-up, unrecognized losses on the magnitude of 30 to 35 percent of the total benefit obligation. Those losses are sitting on the balance sheet in “other comprehensive income” waiting to be recognized over time through earnings, as permitted by current accounting rules. The typical company may have hundreds of millions to tens of billions in pension obligations, according to Stoler. “So they may have hundreds of millions or billions in losses waiting to find their way into the income statement,” he said.

During its webcast, PwC asked its 2,500 registered participants whether the companies they represent were considering following suit and changing their accounting policies to flush out those pent-up losses and recognize them in prior periods where they actually occurred. Only 6.3 percent of participants said their companies are likely to make such a change while 47.8 percent said their companies were not likely to make a change. Another 22 percent said their companies were considering it, but were undecided, and the remainder said they aren't familiar with the idea.