The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation has relaunched its opinion letter program, giving employers, plan sponsors, unions, and practitioners a channel to ask the agency's Office of the General Counsel how Title IV of ERISA applies to specific situations. Requests may be submitted anonymously through counsel, opinions bind only the requester, and the program excludes matters in litigation, coverage determinations, and issues pending in rulemaking. The agency's first opinion letter since 2002 issued in June, finding that annuity buyouts of frozen plan participants do not trigger section 4043 reporting.

Field Assistance Bulletin 2026-01 made late deposits of employee deferrals and loan repayments a DOL enforcement priority, and the agency is mining Form 5500 filings to find them. Small plans must deposit within seven business days of withholding; larger plans must deposit as soon as amounts can reasonably be segregated, typically two to three business days, with the fifteenth business day an emergency outer limit rather than a deadline. Ferenczy recommends written deposit procedures and prompt engagement with the Voluntary Fiduciary Correction Program when deposits slip.

Groom Law Group and CAPTRUST experts answer the question. The Saver's Match is voluntary for 403(b) plans, not required. Eligible low- and moderate-income savers can receive a federal matching contribution of up to $1,000 for taxable years beginning after December 31, 2026, and plans that choose to accept the deposits will need amendments and new administrative procedures under Notice 2026-48.

Section 103 of SECURE 2.0 replaces the Saver's Credit with a matching contribution from the federal government, and its implementation raises a series of decisions for plan sponsors. Seyfarth surveys the open questions about how the new match will operate.

Sixty-one percent of participants on Vanguard's recordkeeping platform held a single target-date fund in 2025, up from 46 percent in 2016, and 66 percent held just one fund of any kind. Vanguard credits automatic enrollment, which nearly 80 percent of large plans now use, and target-date defaults for the simplification.

Rosenbaum's warning to plan sponsors borrows from Breaking Bad. The greatest threat to a 401(k) plan is often not an outside vendor or a plaintiffs' lawyer but the sponsor itself, and fiduciary discipline starts with recognizing it.

The kitchenware retailer is funneling $10 million toward the retirement accounts of workers who helped it navigate tariffs while also reimbursing vendors for discounts.

Attorneys from McDermott Will & Schulte review the costs, benefits and risks for employers to evaluate when deciding how their benefits address these popular medications.

In late July, the Department of Labor proposed new regulations that would extend the notice-and-access electronic disclosure model that the DOL finalized in 2020 for retirement plans to group health plans.

Differences between physical and mental health services mean ensuring equal care 'in spaces that can be quite different.'

The Departments of Labor, Treasury, and Health and Human Services have issued new joint guidance in the form of FAQs offering some enforcement relief for employer-sponsored wellness programs.

Leveraging pharmacies for medical care and incentivizing employees to seek preventive care are among the ways plan sponsors are trying to keep cost hikes in check.

Since the beginning of 2025, more than two dozen putative class actions have been filed challenging the stable value funds offered in retirement plans, on complaints that follow a common template. The suits allege the selected fund credited lower returns than available alternatives and ask courts to infer a flawed fiduciary process from the performance gap. Trucker Huss recommends benchmarking against structurally comparable products, periodic market testing, and documentation of the tradeoff between yield and principal protection.

On August 11 the en banc Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court's vacatur of key portions of the departments' qualifying payment amount methodology in Texas Medical Association v. HHS, the rules governing how plans calculate the benchmark rate that anchors No Surprises Act payment disputes. (Separately, the tri-agencies' July guidance specifying required remittance advice remark codes for No Surprises Act claims takes effect November 1, with mandatory use for items and services furnished on or after January 1, 2027.)

A Massachusetts federal magistrate judge has recommended dismissal of the pension risk transfer suit against AT&T for a second time, finding the transfer was a settlor decision and that AT&T validly delegated annuity provider selection to State Street. One claim survives the recommendation, that State Street did not act with the required independence.

In Liu v. Kaiser Permanente Employees Pension Plan, No. 24-4303 (9th Cir. Aug. 31, 2026), the Ninth Circuit held that the substantial compliance doctrine applies to benefit elections as it does to beneficiary designations, reversing dismissal of a claim by the sister of a participant who submitted a lump-sum election form while hospitalized with cancer and died three days later. The panel rejected the plan's argument that the doctrine is limited to beneficiary changes, and the $676,981 claim proceeds on remand.

In an unpublished decision, the Ninth Circuit vacated class certification in an ERISA fee case involving a defined contribution plan, finding the district court failed to rigorously analyze whether Rule 23's typicality and adequacy requirements were satisfied, and remanded.

The ERISA Industry Committee argued in an amicus brief that Congress and the Treasury Department have long permitted employers' use of unvested funds to offset plan expenses.

Employees say cost, complexity and relevance are getting in the way of benefits value, according to Prudential's latest research, which outlines what that means for employers.

Pay growth and long-term incentives matter most to employees at the moment as well as spot bonuses with increased frequency, Gartner said.

As artificial intelligence continues to move into the mainstream, opportunities abound for eliminating confusion, personalizing content and improving outcomes.