The IRS's August rollover guidance is optional today and a signal for tomorrow. Notice 2026-49, issued August 12, offers plans a five-step process and four sample forms for direct rollovers between plans and IRAs, as SECURE 2.0 required. Foley reads the signals in the fine print: future guidance may disallow paper checks, bar demands for Medallion signature guarantees, a bank's stamp vouching for a signature, that stall rollovers today, and let receiving plans "reasonably conclude" a sending plan is qualified, a lighter standard than the 2014 revenue ruling it would relax. Comments are due October 23.

October 1 is the deadline for a new calendar-year safe harbor 401(k) with a matching formula, because the plan must be in place for at least three months of the plan year. Porter's point is that "in place" means executed documents, provider onboarding, payroll integration, and participant notices delivered roughly 30 days ahead, so the practical decision date falls well before the deadline. Employers aiming to use this matching safe harbor design for the current year need to act before October 1. Other designs run on different clocks; an employer with an existing 401(k) can generally add a 3 percent nonelective safe harbor as late as 30 days before the plan year ends.

Invesco's summer survey of 517 DC participants found interest running ahead of understanding. Asked to identify private-market asset types, participants averaged 3.4 of 5. Seventy-eight percent flagged private equity, but only 41 percent recognized commercial real estate, and 28 percent called cryptocurrency a private asset. Ninety-three percent understood the higher-fee, potentially-higher-return trade-off. What would help, participants said: clearer risk and return explanations (43 percent) and real-world examples, and 65 percent expressed interest in a target-date fund with a modest private-markets allocation. Employees may need basic explanations of these investments before choosing them.

Natixis finds workers increasingly worried about funding their retirement on their own. The three-pillar model of government, employer, and personal savings increasingly reads to participants as a one-pillar model, with a Social Security trust fund projected to be depleted by 2032 feeding the worry, and 41 percent say inflation is "killing their retirement dreams." Natixis's Dave Goodsell: "We really need a new model or a new methodology to talk about and explain where retirement income is going to come from."

Schroders' 2026 U.S. Retirement Survey puts the number workers think they need at $5,094 a month, and finds more than half of nonretired Americans worried about outliving their assets. But many have no strategy for turning balances into a paycheck. Workers need help turning their savings into income that lasts.

Comments on the proposed rules for employer contributions to Trump accounts close tomorrow, September 25, with a public hearing October 15. Troutman walks through what a program requires under the August proposed regulations. A program needs a separate written plan, notice to eligible employees, and an annual statement of contributions. Up to $2,500 per employee each year, across all of the employee's children or other expected tax dependents, can be excluded from federal income tax. Dependent status is judged when the contribution is made, based on what the employee reasonably expects, with nothing to unwind if it changes later. The contributions remain subject to Social Security, Medicare, and federal unemployment taxes, so payroll systems must treat them differently from other pretax benefits. If a program fails its nondiscrimination testing, only highly compensated employees lose the tax break. The Labor Department has said these programs generally aren't ERISA plans.

For most plans, amendments documenting optional SECURE and SECURE 2.0 changes already in operation are due December 31, 2026. Required amendments wait until the end of the second year after they appear on an IRS Required Amendments List, which for the Roth catch-up mandate is expected to mean December 31, 2029, per Haynes Boone's read of the September 16 bulletin. Bricker Graydon's Lyndsey Barnett adds the question sponsors skip: whether the person signing the amendment actually has authority to adopt it. If the board never delegated amendment authority, board action is required, and auditors ask for the resolutions, not just the amendment. One caution: a later amendment deadline doesn't postpone the requirement to operate the plan correctly in the meantime.

Aon's alert on the new assessment fills in what the headline version leaves out. Employers aren't charged for employees or dependents with a developmental, intellectual, or permanent physical disability. Starting July 1, 2027, short-tenure, part-time, per diem, temporary, and seasonal employees are excluded too, and an employer charged for one of them before then can seek a credit or refund. The law bars using Medicaid enrollment information in hiring, promotion, or retention decisions. And the open questions are real. The state hasn't said what data it will use to calculate the fee, how employers can verify an assessment, or how people who work for more than one employer will be counted. Aon's advice is to track the litigation and watch for implementing guidance.

Morningstar's annual HSA study has assets up 19 percent in 2025 on $14.9 billion of net inflows, credited to competition from lower fees and stronger investment menus. Providers reported little evidence so far that the new federal eligibility expansion has driven participation. Fidelity again rates highest on spending accounts; HSA Bank, which the report discloses is Morningstar's own HSA provider, earned its first high investment mark; seven of eleven providers now offer brokerage windows.

KFF surveyed 4,688 women ages 18 to 64, and 42 percent delayed or postponed care they thought they needed in the past year because of cost (35 percent of men), 31 percent skipped recommended tests or treatments because of cost, 27 percent left a prescription unfilled, and 25 percent spent less on basic needs to afford care. Among women with employer-sponsored coverage, 38 percent report delaying or postponing care because of cost.

An individual coverage health reimbursement arrangement reimburses employees for individual health insurance they buy themselves, so the employer sets its contribution in advance rather than underwriting a group plan's claims. Adoption is still concentrated among employers with fewer than 50 employees, and industry-wide enrollment is roughly one million people, but the broker channel is moving: 56 percent of brokers now recommend or implement the model, and the share that has moved at least one client onto an ICHRA has more than doubled since 2024, to 37 percent. "ICHRA is a culture change," Zorro's Ben Light says in the piece, and the education burden lands on the employer.

The Labor Department has identified three priorities for mental health parity investigations. In Field Assistance Bulletin 2026-03, issued September 8, investigators are told to focus on plans that exclude mental health treatments while covering comparable medical care, on how plans decide whether treatment is medically necessary, and on whether patients can actually get care through the plan's provider network, the areas EBSA says carry "the highest potential for significant harm." Plans must still maintain a written analysis comparing their restrictions on mental health and substance use treatment with those on medical and surgical care, and provide it to the Department on request. Participant complaints can prompt investigations beyond the three priorities. Epstein Becker notes the agencies have committed to proposing replacement parity regulations by December 31.

Surgery v. Cigna, No. 25-2204 (2d Cir. Sept. 17, 2026), the next front is providers pivoting to state-law claims, with one district court already staying hundreds of provider suits pending amended complaints, per Groom's Daniel Mulligan. His alert also traces the holding to a drafting tell. The statute lets a party ask a court to set aside an arbitration award but never provides for court enforcement of one. The volume behind the fight is striking. In 2025, 2.56 million disputes were initiated, roughly 115 times what the government projected. Kantor & Kantor's Peter Sessions fills in the fight itself, including Cigna's counterclaim that the practice's billing caused $8.5 million in overpayments.

Hughes elected accidental death and dismemberment (AD&D) coverage at ten times salary, an $830,000 benefit. When his wife died in an accident, the plan paid $415,000, because the chart in the plan's benefits summary, the SPD, caps spousal coverage at 50 percent. He sued, alleging the limit was buried in "non-obvious hyperlinks" and that a Truist benefits manager conceded it was not easy to find. In Hughes v. Truist Bank, the court dismissed everything. The chart is unambiguous, and designing the portal is an administrative task that doesn't involve exercising fiduciary judgment. "If internet portal design were to become fodder for claims of breach of fiduciary duty, it would risk expanding fiduciary duties well beyond the text of ERISA." Federal benefits law also barred his state-law misrepresentation claims.

Sun Life's first vocational expert described Schuyler's sales job as requiring walking or standing six hours a day. On appeal, a second expert cut that to about two and a half hours, and Sun Life adopted the lighter standard without ever explaining why it abandoned its own earlier expert, as the claims regulation requires. In Schuyler v. Sun Life, the court found the unexplained switch could affect the outcome, so it will no longer defer to the insurer's judgment, and the brain-injured claimant's case heads back to Sun Life to be decided on the full record, including a favorable Social Security award.

Illinois providers treated 65 participants of Aisin Manufacturing's self-funded plan after Anthem verified coverage by phone, billed about $895,000, and were paid about $184,000. In Marion HealthCare v. Aisin, their ERISA claims were dismissed because both plan versions bar patients from transferring their right to claim benefits to providers, so the patients' assignments conveyed nothing. The plan's direct-payment clause didn't help; paying providers directly is payment mechanics, not permission to sue.

In Bachand v. Reliance Standard, a Medtronic engineer with autoimmune hepatitis lost her benefits when the policy shifted from her own job to any suitable work. Even reviewing the claim independently, without deferring to the insurer, the court sided with Reliance. Her doctor's disability letter was contradicted by his own contemporaneous notes ("some fatigue and muscle aches but improved"), and he never returned four voicemails from the insurer's reviewing physician, which the court said supported rejecting his opinion.

In Germana v. Hartford, a registered nurse's benefits ended when his policy's test moved from inability to do his own job to inability to do other work the policy covers. The court upheld the termination and rejected each of his challenges. A denial letter has to explain the decision, the court held, not coach a winning appeal. Hartford could require objective evidence of his functional limits. And a psychiatric report submitted nine months after the final appeal decision came too late to count, because pandemic-era extensions gave claimants more time to file appeals, not a longer window to add evidence afterward.

In DiGeronimo v. Unum, the court upheld Unum's denial of a demolition executive's disability claim. He had worked full-time with nighttime seizures for sixteen years before claiming his epilepsy became disabling in 2020. His treating neurologist's letters never discussed how often the seizures occurred and came after a nineteen-month gap in visits, and he drew a $42,000 salary from his house-flipping company after claiming disability. On his "cherry-picking" accusation, the court held the charge cuts both ways, and that relying on reviewers who disagree with a treating physician isn't cherry-picking.

Fraud victims holding a $364 million restitution award against an IIG founder asked the courts to liquidate his IRA and insurance assets, which had grown from $3.5 million to $5.1 million. In In re IIG, the Second Circuit refused. The criminal judgment set a payment schedule ($40,000 down, then 10 percent of monthly income), and that schedule limited what the victims could collect while the defendant stayed current on it. The law that lets restitution reach retirement assets despite ERISA's usual protections defines what property can be reached, the court held, not when. The victims' remedy is asking the sentencing court to change the schedule.

A $5,000 answer. In Haldeman v. Mass General Brigham, No. 25-cv-10331-ADB (D. Mass. Sept. 14, 2026), the court imposed a statutory penalty for a 230-day delay in producing plan documents a participant requested, and awarded fees. The plan administrator is the only proper defendant under the statute. The participant didn't have to prove deliberate misconduct or that the delay harmed him. And the $110 a day figure is a ceiling within the court's discretion, not an entitlement. The practical protection is a process for identifying and supplying requested plan documents on time.

A lawsuit challenging Dish's choice of retirement funds can proceed toward trial. In Jones v. Dish Network, a certified class of about 17,000 participants in Dish's $1.6 billion 401(k) plan alleges the plan held on to Fidelity Freedom Funds despite years of underperformance against similar funds. The court declined to end the case before trial because disputed facts remain, and faulted the record on the company's side. Per the alert, Dish "hasn't provided a substantive fund performance analysis that would allow a decision on the duty of prudence issue."

A year-end checklist for the nonprofit and governmental slice of the audience. It covers amendment deadlines (December 31, 2026 for most qualified plans; governmental plans get until 2029), the Roth catch-up requirement for employees with more than $150,000 in prior-year FICA wages from the sponsoring employer, the new paper benefit-statement requirement for ERISA plans, and year-end tax decisions for certain deferred compensation arrangements. One distinction to carry into the review: amendments documenting optional changes already in use are on the year-end clock, while required amendments may have later deadlines.

U.S. retirement assets reached $51.2 trillion as of June 30, a 7.9 percent rebound from a down first quarter and a third of all household financial assets. IRAs remain the largest segment at $19.9 trillion, compared with $15 trillion in workplace defined contribution plans such as 401(k)s.

With collective investment trusts now the preferred DC vehicle over mutual funds, a useful refresher on oversight. CITs are bank products supervised by banking regulators, mutual funds are SEC-registered, and when a CIT holds retirement plan assets, ERISA's fiduciary duties apply to those responsible for it. The experts' shared point is that the vehicle matters less than the sponsor's process, quarterly monitoring of performance, expenses, and the trustee's own track record.