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If you're still employed and your company is offering buyouts as part of an overall downsizing plan, taking the package and looking around for another job may be preferable to staying put and hoping for the best on the pension front. If your company's financial condition worsens, you could find yourself not only out of the full pension benefits you were promised, but out of a job, too.

In addition, a looming pension shortfall should also prompt you to take a closer look at how--and how much--you're investing for your own retirement. Obviously, saving more and spending less are key. And while conventional wisdom argues that pension-holders can invest their retirement assets more aggressively than non-pension-holders in the same age band, because the former can expect a steady stream of income in retirement, it pays to rethink that wisdom if your pension is on shaky ground. On one hand, an uncertain pension makes it all the more important that you expand your total retirement nest egg as large as you can, but it also necessitates that you hold more in liquid assets and bonds that you can tap to cover your living expenses.