Trump Accounts are a new tax-favored, IRA-style savings vehicle that may be established for eligible children by an authorized individual, such as a parent, legal guardian, or grandparent, and may receive federal, family, and employer contributions.
Wednesday, August 26, 2026
№ 39Retirement Plans (6)·Health & Welfare (7)·Case Commentary (4)·Also Noteworthy (2)
The One Thing
Eight federal appellate courts now agree: ERISA plan sponsors cannot use an arbitration clause to strip participants of plan-wide relief, and the workarounds sponsors tried instead (carve-outs for injunctive relief, savings clauses promising ERISA remedies, general severability language) have each failed on appeal in turn. Waiver language drafted before this consensus formed is unlikely to survive a challenge. Nixon Peabody's ERISA litigation team maps the ten circuit decisions behind the trend and flags the two structures no court has yet foreclosed: delegating arbitrability to the arbitrator, and clauses that omit the offending language altogether.
Retirement Plans (6)
When plan sponsors think about retirement plan risk, they often focus on investment committees, financial advisors, or highly compensated executives. In reality, the employee who creates the greatest risk to a retirement plan is often someone far less visible.
Experts from Groom Law Group and CAPTRUST answer questions concerning retirement plan administration and regulations.
More than one-quarter of surveyed Generation Z investors said they used sports betting as part of a long-term investing strategy, according to Betterment.
New research finds managed account users generally have higher contribution rates and are more likely to earn their full employer match, with the biggest differences in voluntary enrollment plans.
Many households do not have enough saved to maintain their standard of living in retirement. This resource gap means that retirees will often have to cut back on consumption and, in some cases, rely on their adult children for financial support.
Health & Welfare (7)
On August 10, President Trump signed an executive order directing HHS to sort childhood vaccines into three tiers of recommendation within 90 days. Groom's read for plan sponsors: the order doesn't itself revise the CDC's ACIP-based immunization schedule, so the ACA's requirement that non-grandfathered group health plans cover ACIP-recommended immunizations without cost-sharing is unchanged for now. HHS's request for comment on the new framework runs through September 20.
Recent projections for 2027 increases range from 9.2% to 11% without plan-design changes.
PSCA survey finds more than 80% of employees contribute to their workplace Health Savings Accounts, but not enough workers are tapping their unique tax advantages.
For employer-sponsored group health plans, the impending change from global bundle to CPT-code billing for maternity care could bring better visibility while raising new questions about costs, administration and the participant experience.
Employers cover more than 80% of the burden, but employees will also be hit by rising costs, an Aon report found.
On July 22, 2026, the DOL published a proposed rule that would create a similar safe harbor for group health plans governed by ERISA that was adopted in 2020.
The 2026 regulations standardize claim communications, restructure open negotiation, clarify batching rules, and impose tighter deadlines for determining IDR eligibility. Self-funded plans must register.
Case Commentary (4)
Eight federal appellate courts have now held that ERISA plan sponsors cannot use an arbitration clause to strip participants of plan-wide relief, with representative-capacity bars, remedy limits capping recovery at individual accounts, and class-action waivers each failing across ten circuit decisions. The carve-outs sponsors tried instead (exceptions for injunctive relief, savings clauses promising ERISA remedies, general severability language) have each been tested and rejected on appeal, and legacy waiver language drafted before this consensus formed is unlikely to survive a challenge. Nixon Peabody's ERISA litigation team identifies two structures no court has yet foreclosed (delegating arbitrability to the arbitrator and clauses that omit the restrictive language entirely) and advises sponsors to audit existing arbitration provisions now rather than wait for a challenge to test them.
In Mason v. New York Life Insurance Company, a magistrate judge in the Southern District of New York let a long COVID disability claimant pursue narrow discovery outside the administrative record, allowing targeted requests for the financial incentives and performance reviews of the employees who handled her claim while declining broader asks like aggregate denial-rate statistics. The takeaway: conflict-of-interest discovery fares better aimed at the specific people who decided the claim than framed as a search through the administrator's overall track record.
The employer advocacy group warned that litigation challenging wellness program incentives could discourage employers from offering health-related premium discounts.
A federal judge has granted a motion to dismiss a stable value suit, because the plaintiffs “have failed to state any of their claims.” And not for the first time, apparently.
Also Noteworthy (2)
The DOL's Office of Inspector General found "significant internal-control deficiencies" across 48 common-interest agreements that three DOL agencies entered into with private plaintiff-side law firms between January 2023 and June 2025, including no centralized tracking system, undocumented communications, and at least two instances where investigative information was shared beyond normal discovery rules. The report also flags one attorney who moved from a firm holding a DOL agreement to serve as Senior Counsel to the Labor Secretary, then returned to that same firm. Hall Benefits Law's takeaway is that any party relying on an information-sharing arrangement, regulator or plan sponsor alike, should expect this kind of documentation gap to draw scrutiny going forward.
The American Society of Pension Professionals and Actuaries designation is designed for plan administrators, recordkeepers and advisers.