One CPI month remains and the projections have stabilized. Milliman projects a $25,500 elective deferral limit for 401(k), 403(b), and 457 plans, up $1,000, with an $8,500 catch-up and an $11,750 super catch-up for ages 60 to 63. The defined contribution annual additions cap lands at $75,000, the defined benefit maximum annuity at $300,000, the compensation limit at $375,000, and the HCE threshold at $170,000. The forecast runs on actual fiscal-year CPI through August 31, with trailing CPI-U at 3.4 percent, leaving one month of data between these projections and the official figures the IRS typically announces in late October or early November.

A sponsor-side walkthrough of Notice 2026-48, the August guidance on the federal match of up to 50 percent of contributions, capped at $1,000 a year, that replaces the Saver's Credit for tax years beginning after 2026. The useful frame is the decision tree, because plans are not required to accept the match money at all. Accepting it brings amendment, transmission, and recordkeeping choices. The walkthrough also flags seven operational questions Treasury and the IRS say they are still working through, from tax treatment to claiming mechanics. First federal payments arrive in 2028. Comments on the open questions close October 5.

A practitioner's read on SURCH, the newly launched States' Unclaimed Retirement Clearing House, framed for the fiduciaries who live with the problem. The clearinghouse gives sponsors and recordkeepers a single portal for voluntarily transferring certain unclaimed retirement distributions to participating state unclaimed property programs, with dozens of states and the District of Columbia on board so far, in place of separate state-by-state processes. The logic is comparative advantage, since state unclaimed property offices have decades of experience reuniting owners with abandoned assets, searchable databases included. The warning is equally plain. This is not a free pass to stop searching, and prudent search procedures and documentation remain the fiduciary's job.

Written for public plans but useful to any defined benefit sponsor nearing the finish line. With the aggregate state pension funded ratio at 78.8 percent for fiscal 2025, up from 76.7 percent a year earlier, more systems are within sight of full funding, and Segal's point is that arriving is not the same as being done. The roadmap holds four disciplines. Assumptions get set for long-term stability rather than surplus-flattering optimism. Contribution rates get a glide path for the cliff that arrives when the amortization payments drop off. Benefit enhancements meet the caution the pre-2000 bull market taught, and asset allocation gets recalibrated for negative cash flow, with less in illiquid holdings.

A contributed case for retiring past returns as the default fund screen. The persistence data is old news told well, since only 17.2 percent of top-quartile domestic equity funds over the five years ending 2020 stayed top-quartile for the next five, per S&P Dow Jones. The alternative offered is capture spread, upside capture minus downside capture. One 2021 study found funds in the highest quintile beat the lowest by 720 basis points the following year, and Vanguard research this year points the same direction. The underlying math is loss asymmetry, because a fund that gives up less in drawdowns needs less of the rebound. The useful part is the question the piece hands committees. Ask how a return was produced, not just what it was.

Open enrollment is not landing with the youngest employees. An Empower study of more than 1,000 workers found only 44 percent of Gen Z and 50 percent of millennials navigate the process successfully. The practical fixes come from benefits consultant Jennifer Schaefer. Assume no baseline understanding and explain terms from scratch, with real-world cost examples. Make plans easy to compare. Test whether the enrollment technology is actually intuitive, and ask employees what they value instead of building the strategy on assumptions. Her broader point travels beyond one generation, since a process rebuilt to be easier for the newest hires gets easier for everyone.

A concise refresher on the mechanics behind a routine piece of equity compensation. In a net settlement the employer withholds enough vesting shares to cover payroll and income taxes, delivers the rest, and sends the cash equivalent of the withheld shares to the IRS and state authorities. Four considerations come first. The company needs cash on hand, because it pays the tax authorities directly. Net settlements for Section 16 officers must be structured as exempt under Rule 16b-3, which generally means advance board or compensation committee approval, so many companies hardwire automatic net settlement into award agreements or confine it to open trading windows and Rule 10b5-1 plans. The equity plan and award agreement must both authorize the practice. And a timely Section 83(b) election takes net settlement off the table, since the taxable event moves to grant, before any shares have vested.

A former player's fiduciary breach claims against the two physicians who reviewed his neurocognitive disability claim ended at the pleading stage, with prejudice. The plan makes a medical advisory physician's determination final and binding on medical issues the board refers, but the court read that authority as exactly what it says, medical judgment on a discrete question, while the board keeps full and absolute discretion over plan interpretation and benefit entitlement. Advising professionals become fiduciaries only through an unusual degree of influence over the plan, and neither co-authoring an examiner manual nor an alleged pattern of claim-unfriendly findings supplies it. The benefits claim against the plan itself continues.

A question mental health claimants increasingly ask, answered down the middle. In J.W. v. Quantum Health, a Southern District of Ohio magistrate judge let a family litigating a residential treatment denial proceed under first names and last initials while refusing full pseudonymity, finding only one of the Sixth Circuit's Porter factors satisfied, the utmost intimacy of a child's behavioral health history. The practical read is that partial anonymity may be reachable in benefits cases where the full pseudonym bar is not, decided case by case. It also mattered that the defendants already knew exactly who the plaintiffs were.

A practical recap of the year's two big withdrawal liability rulings, with the arithmetic that makes them sting. In M&K Employee Solutions, a unanimous Supreme Court held that ERISA does not require the actuarial assumptions behind a withdrawal liability calculation to be locked in by the measurement date. The date fixes the facts, not the assumptions, and the ruling blessed a post-measurement discount rate change that took one employer from $1.8 million to $6.2 million. In Perfection Bakeries, the Eleventh Circuit applied partial withdrawal credits before the 20-year payment cap rather than after, a sequencing question worth about $2 million in that case, and certiorari was denied in April. The advice follows the math. Treat fund estimates as preliminary, watch contribution reductions, since a drop of more than 70 percent can trigger partial withdrawal, and probe assessment-versus-funding rate disparities when challenging an assessment.

The litigation-side view of what the wellness FAQs do to the pending cases. The surcharge suits that began in 2024 lean on three theories, that the only reasonable alternative demanded quitting, that mid-year completers got no refund, and that alternatives went undisclosed. The guidance directly rebuts the refund theory, reasoning that the language plaintiffs cite came from the 2013 regulation's preamble, not its text. The prediction is measured. The FAQs could sway courts toward employers and thin out new filings where the alternative standard was actually disclosed, which leaves disclosure hygiene as the live battleground.