The series on the DOL's alternative assets proposal reaches its third performance benchmark example, a target date fund holding only publicly traded securities. The fiduciary in the example builds a custom composite benchmark blending broad indices to match the fund's asset allocation, reviews it analytically, and compares performance component by component rather than in the aggregate, down to matching a 10 percent small cap growth sleeve with a 10 percent small cap growth index. The practical point is candid. This example is the easiest case the proposal will ever present, a fund holding nothing but publicly traded securities, and building a meaningful benchmark for it is already a heavy lift. Once private assets enter the mix, the lift gets heavier.

EBRI put numbers on the SECURE 2.0 student loan match. If every defined contribution plan adopted the provision, matching contributions on loan payments would add an estimated $20.2 billion a year to retirement accounts at a 6 percent match cap, or $11.2 billion at 4 percent. The demographics explain who would benefit. About 20 percent of 401(k) participants aged 25 to 69 carried student debt, rising to 35.7 percent of those 25 to 29, and borrowers participate less than debt-free peers of the same age, 75.5 percent against 84.1 percent. The median balance gap between borrowers and nonborrowers peaks for workers in their 40s, at 45 percent.

The second-day read on Field Assistance Bulletin 2026-03, built on practitioner interviews. The critique is that the bulletin names its targets, blanket exclusions, utilization management, and network adequacy, without defining a violation. KFF's Kaye Pestaina says the Department outlined the areas it will focus on “but don't really give specifics about what is a violation in those areas.” Segal's Elena Lynett hears sponsors asking for “a clear path forward and clear boundaries,” and Morgan Lewis's Sage Fattahian calls the guidance a step in the right direction that leaves the original question open, what exactly the Department wants to see in a comparative analysis. The statutory comparative analysis obligation remains fully enforceable, the 2024 rule's additions sit in a nonenforcement window, and new proposed regulations are expected by December.

The compliance-alert read on the same bulletin, from a usefully different angle. Vorys traces the FAB's origin to Executive Order 14219's deregulatory review, which sent EBSA back to re-evaluate its MHPAEA enforcement approach, and notes the bulletin is by its terms internal policy directed at EBSA staff that plans can nonetheless use to guide compliance. The most useful detail is the example of what counts as a blanket exclusion. A plan that excludes residential treatment for mental health and substance use disorder conditions while covering comparable inpatient or post-acute care on the medical side, skilled nursing included, is the kind of exclusion EBSA will pursue. Plans relying on proprietary clinical guidelines for medical necessity must make them available on request, under ERISA section 712(a)(4). The advice to employers is to confirm their plans have documentation showing compliance with the three priorities, since EBSA will still investigate other limitations as participant complaints surface them.

The transition relief on the federal tax treatment of state PFML programs runs out after 2026, and this walkthrough focuses on the payroll consequences. Under Revenue Ruling 2025-4, as extended by Notice 2026-6, medical leave benefits funded by employer contributions are treated as wages for federal employment tax purposes, which brings withholding, employment tax, and reporting obligations that family leave benefits do not carry. Washington and Massachusetts have already restructured their programs to point employer money at family leave and employee money at medical leave. The action items are unglamorous and datable. Review how each state program is funded, and confirm the payroll vendor can capture what 2027 reporting will require.

A Gallagher consultant's case that the leave expansion of the last five years is due for a disciplined second look. More than 45 percent of employers now offer parental leave per a Gallagher survey, 13 states run paid programs of roughly 12 weeks, and some organizations have begun trimming durations and PTO banks under cost pressure. The argued sweet spot is four to 12 weeks of bonding time, aligned with the state programs so employer plans supplement rather than duplicate them. The adjustments offered are concrete, from one-year eligibility periods to leave taken in predictable blocks rather than intermittently, all grounded in utilization data before anything gets cut.

The case behind today's One Thing. McCalla v. USI Insurance Services was filed September 8 in the Southern District of New York, with a class period running from September 2020 and counts for prohibited transactions under section 1106(b) and breach of the duty of loyalty, seeking disgorgement and USI's removal as fiduciary. It is the sixth case in the voluntary benefits genre and the first brought by Capozzi Adler rather than the Schlichter firm behind the earlier five. NAPA's writeup ran September 9.

The Labor Department's longest-running ESOP valuation case is ending in two stages, and the second arrived last week. The 2019 complaint alleged that Reliance Trust, as trustee for the employee stock ownership plan of RVR Inc., the Mesa-based Cruise America RV company, let the plan overpay for company stock by tens of millions of dollars in a $105 million 2014 purchase. The trustee relied on an appraiser that was not truly independent and ignored red flags, per the complaint. Stage one came in 2023, when Reliance exited through a consent judgment that recovered $22.5 million, including $20.4 million in restitution. Stage two is the news. The claims against RVR's board members had kept running, and on September 10 those parties filed a notice of settlement with a joint motion to stay. Judge Silver stayed all proceedings, discovery included, until November 9 while the papers are finalized. Terms of the board members' deal are not yet public.

A 2 to 1 panel affirmed summary judgment for Washington in the long-running challenge to the state's Reproductive Parity Act, which requires carriers that cover maternity care to cover abortion. Cedar Park, a Kirkland church with about 140 employees, kept its Kaiser plan after Kaiser declined to carve out abortion coverage in 2019. The panel first found standing, reading the Supreme Court's 2025 Diamond Alternative Energy decision to credit the commonsense economic reality that more affordable services get used more. On the merits the majority held both the Parity Act and the state's conscience statute neutral and generally applicable, noting that the conscience statute exempts religious and secular objectors alike and that the record showed a competing carrier had offered the church cheaper plans excluding abortion. Judge Callahan dissented in part, arguing the laws burden religious exercise and cannot survive strict scrutiny. For religious employers with insured plans in mandate states, the self-insured route is the one this opinion does not touch.

The first firm commentary on Monday's One Thing, written from the claimant side. The walkthrough of Glaud v. NFL Player Disability and Survivor Benefit Plan confirms that fiduciary status is a threshold prerequisite to the breach claims and that the medical advisory physicians decided only the medical issues submitted to them while the board kept final authority. The takeaway for claimants is blunt. Medical reviewers cannot be sued for breach of fiduciary duty merely for issuing unfavorable opinions, even in a pattern, unless the professional exercises an unusual degree of influence over the plan. The benefits claim against the plan itself is where the case now lives.