(Bloomberg) -- Hartford Financial Services Group Inc.is working to reduce its retirement obligations by paying formeremployees to give up their pensions.

Last month, the insurer offered voluntary lump-sum payments toabout 13,500 workers who had left the company and hadn’t yetstarted receiving pension payments, Hartford said todayin its quarterly filing. The former workers have until November tomake a decision, and will get the payouts the following month.

Hartford has divested life insurance and retirement unitsto focus on property-casualty coverage. The firm has also offeredpayments to clients to give up some retirement products it sold inprior periods in an effort to limit future obligations.

“We delivered margin expansion across the business lines andtop-line growth in P&C,” Chief Executive Officer ChristopherSwift said today in a statement announcing third- quarter results.“Looking ahead, our primary objectives are to drivereturn-on-equity improvement and growth in book value pershare.”

A high acceptance rate on the offer disclosed today may triggera fourth-quarter settlement charge of as much as $140million, Hartford said. The cost would be cushioned byadjustments to other accounts that aren’t included in netincome.

Hartford had $5.52 billion in retirement benefitobligations and $4.63 billion of assets as of Dec. 31., leaving ashortfall of $886 million, according to the company’s annual reportwith the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The company frozethe pension plan as of Dec. 31, 2012, limiting the ability ofemployees to accrue further benefits.

The insurer said today that it added $100 million last month toits U.S. pension plan.

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