Treasury and the IRS propose regulations implementing changes to Marketplace premium tax credits on several schedules. The 2026 changes include removal of limits on repayment of excess advance credits. Additional eligibility restrictions apply in 2027, while expanded verification requirements begin in 2028. The proposal as published distinguishes the law’s effective dates from the proposed regulations’ applicability provisions. It doesn’t impose new employer Forms 1095-B or 1095-C reporting requirements, and some underlying statutory changes already apply even though these implementing regulations aren’t final. Treasury and the IRS summarize the package in an accompanying news release. Comments are due November 30, 2026.

PBGC published updated interest assumptions for valuing benefits when allocating assets in terminating single-employer plans. The quarterly assumptions cover valuation dates from October 31, 2026, through January 30, 2027. They serve the specified PBGC valuation functions and shouldn’t be substituted for ordinary pension-funding assumptions. Administrators handling a termination should use the schedule applicable to the valuation date. The Federal Register rule supplies the operative assumptions.

Social Security benefits increase 3.6% for 2027, and the maximum wages subject to Social Security tax rise from $184,500 to $192,300. The tax rate remains 6.2% each for employees and employers. Higher retirement benefits begin in January; increased Supplemental Security Income payments arrive December 31, 2026. SSA’s 2027 fact sheet also updates the earnings limits for people receiving benefits before full retirement age. Payroll and retirement-education materials need to distinguish these changes from retirement-plan contribution limits.

NAPA’s Ted Godbout reports on the 2027 Social Security adjustment and the related payroll changes employers need to prepare for. Benefits rise 3.6%, while the wage base subject to Social Security tax increases to $192,300. The article also covers advocates’ concerns that the worker-based inflation measure used for the adjustment does not reflect older households’ spending patterns. Employers should distinguish these announced Social Security figures from the separate IRS limits for retirement-plan contributions, which were still forthcoming when the article appeared.

Senior advocates say the 3.6% Social Security increase still won’t keep up with the expenses many retirees face. Their criticism centers on the inflation measure used to set benefits, which reflects spending by workers rather than older households. Some favor an index weighted toward older consumers’ costs, including healthcare. That would require a policy change. The announced increase follows the existing formula, and advocacy for a different measure hasn’t changed the amount payable in 2027.

A frozen pension plan with a surplus may offer an employer another way to provide retirement benefits. Milliman examines reopening a defined benefit plan and using accumulated assets or a prefunding balance, which reflects certain prior contributions, to help support new benefits. The appeal depends on cash-flow projections, contribution rules, workforce needs and the cost of future promises. A surplus measured now doesn’t guarantee that a reopened plan will remain inexpensive as interest rates, investment returns and employee demographics change.

A business owner has her retirement plan buy commercial property and then lets her business use it without paying rent. Ferenczy Benefits Law Center’s hypothetical shows how an investment that looks convenient can turn into a prohibited transaction. Correcting it requires more than starting rent payments now. The analysis addresses valuation, restoring lost earnings and unwinding the improper arrangement, along with the possible role of the Labor Department’s voluntary correction program. A correction route doesn’t automatically erase every tax or fiduciary consequence.

Wagner attorneys Harold Ashner and Israel Goldowitz urge PBGC to tailor penalties to the seriousness of a violation and the sponsor’s efforts to comply. Their comments favor meaningful credit for prompt correction, reasonable oversight of outside providers and circumstances where an error caused no harm. They also question automatic escalation based on repeat violations. These are recommendations on a proposed rule, rather than an adopted penalty schedule or a guarantee of relief for a particular filing failure.

The revised Transparency in Coverage rules put accuracy and accountability alongside public access to health-plan prices. Mintz explains the move to quarterly updates to in-network and out-of-network pricing files, more standardized rate information and an accuracy attestation by a senior official. Different provisions take effect on different schedules, so plans need a requirement-by-requirement implementation calendar. For self-insured employers, assigning the work to an administrator doesn’t make oversight disappear. Vendor agreements should identify who prepares, validates and posts the information.

Groom’s analysis of the revised Transparency in Coverage rules focuses on who stands behind the numbers. The final rule requires an accuracy attestation and identification of a responsible senior official. A plan can arrange in writing for its administrator to make the attestation using the administrator’s designated official. For self-insured plans, however, the plan remains responsible if the administrator fails to comply. Employers should check who prepares, validates and posts the pricing files, and who corrects errors. Quarterly updates to in-network and out-of-network pricing files follow a different schedule from changes to participants’ cost-comparison tools.

Federal agencies have finalized changes intended to make public health-plan pricing information smaller, cleaner and easier to use. PLANADVISER describes quarterly file updates, improved validation and added responsibility for accuracy, alongside changes affecting consumers’ cost-comparison tools. Reducing the volume of published data doesn’t eliminate the work of producing it. Plans need to identify which party performs each task and which deadlines apply to the particular disclosure or tool.

Davis Wright Tremaine looks at the revised health-price transparency rules from the provider’s side. More usable files can help hospitals compare negotiated rates, evaluate payer proposals and understand how contracts differ across networks. Standardization won’t make every price directly comparable, since service definitions and contract arrangements still matter. The analysis gives employer purchasers a view of how providers may use the same information in negotiations, and why a posted rate alone doesn’t settle the value of a deal.

Hawaii employers should obtain 2027 Form HC-5 from employees who qualify to waive the employer’s health coverage, Aon explains. The annual process requires attention even when an employee’s reason for declining coverage hasn’t changed. The bulletin recommends completing the forms by December 31, 2026, and retaining them for at least two years. Employers generally keep the completed forms rather than routinely sending them to the state, but must provide them when requested.

A narrower federal enforcement agenda doesn’t eliminate mental-health parity duties. This National Law Review analysis discusses the Labor Department’s focus on coverage exclusions, medical-necessity standards and access to in-network care. The enforcement bulletin preserves statutory duties, including comparative analyses of treatment limits that aren’t expressed as dollar or visit caps. Labor, Treasury and HHS have jointly announced nonenforcement of newer provisions of the 2024 rule, but that policy doesn’t erase the underlying law. The replacement-rule timetable also needs care. In their September 30 court filing, the agencies said they intend to submit a proposal for White House regulatory review by December 18, 2026. That’s a submission target, not a public-release deadline. ERIC objects that the agencies have retreated from their earlier December 31 publication target.

A federal judge has preliminarily approved a $9.25 million settlement over two carpenters retirement plans’ investments in Allianz Structured Alpha funds. Callan’s share is $5 million and the trustees’ share is $4.25 million, with fees and expenses deducted before participants receive benefits. According to plaintiffs’ counsel, the plans had already recouped their investment losses from Allianz, and this suit sought the additional returns the investments should have produced. Under the agreement, payments depend on each plan’s allocation formula; pension participants generally receive added benefit credits. Defendants deny wrongdoing. Final approval remains ahead, with a hearing set for February 17, 2027.

7-Eleven has agreed to a $2,313,480.87 settlement of Barbara Baker’s challenge to its tobacco surcharges. An October 13 motion asks a federal court in Texas for preliminary approval. Baker alleges the program failed to offer and disclose a compliant alternative that would let participants avoid the full surcharge. The settlement agreement covers unreimbursed charges paid from September 26, 2018, through preliminary approval. Eligible participants would receive automatic checks proportional to their unreimbursed surcharges, after attorneys’ fees and other expenses come out of the fund. Attorneys may request up to 33.33% of the fund in fees, plus costs. 7-Eleven denies wrongdoing.

Proskauer examines the defense employers lost when the Eleventh Circuit decided Bolton. Participants bringing statutory ERISA claims no longer have to complete a plan’s internal claims process merely because circuit precedent required it. The full-court opinion overrules that precedent while preserving the distinction between statutory claims and claims for benefits due under plan terms. Whether a plan can impose an enforceable contractual exhaustion requirement remains unresolved. Fiduciaries therefore need to evaluate the claim itself before relying on an unfinished administrative appeal.

The Eleventh Circuit’s decision in Bolton removes a court-imposed exhaustion requirement for statutory ERISA claims, including fiduciary-breach suits. PLANSPONSOR explores what that means for employers and litigants through practitioner interviews. The full-court opinion distinguishes those claims from suits seeking benefits under a plan, where exhaustion remains relevant. It also leaves open the effect of an exhaustion requirement written into a plan. The ruling changes the route into court, without deciding whether the underlying fiduciary allegations will succeed.

Roberts Disability Law explains why the Eleventh Circuit abandoned its longstanding requirement that claimants exhaust internal remedies before bringing statutory ERISA claims. The court concluded that the statute doesn’t impose that prerequisite on claims such as breach of fiduciary duty. The Bolton opinion leaves benefits claims on a different track and doesn’t resolve whether plan language can create a contractual exhaustion obligation. For participants asserting wrongdoing beyond a benefits denial, the distinction can determine when litigation may begin.

Cognizant’s proposed $2.8 million settlement of a 401(k) lawsuit has hit a preliminary-approval setback. Participants allege excessive recordkeeping costs and imprudent investment choices, according to their settlement brief; Cognizant denies wrongdoing. In an October 13 order, Judge Michael Farbiarz said the submitted evidence focused on how the parties negotiated the deal rather than why its terms deserved approval. He required detailed, case-specific support and denied preliminary approval without prejudice, allowing a renewed request. Agreement between the parties has not yet established that this retirement-plan settlement is fair to participants.

Thermo Fisher has asked a federal court to dismiss an employee’s suit over its refusal to add a fossil-fuel-free 401(k) option to accommodate his Christian beliefs. In its October 13 brief, the company argues that he missed the deadline to file a discrimination charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. It also argues that the request concerns plan design rather than a conflict between his religion and a job requirement, and that he hasn’t alleged a separate adverse employment action. These are the company’s arguments from its brief. The court hasn’t ruled on them.

A severance release didn’t end James Muldoon’s challenge to Penn State Health’s retirement plans. The court dismissed his individual claims but allowed claims brought on the plans’ behalf to proceed. Hall Benefits Law discusses allegations involving investment selection, recordkeeping charges and the use of employer contributions that departing employees hadn’t earned the right to keep to reduce the employer’s own payments. The September 2 opinion treats those allegations as sufficient to continue litigation, without finding that the fiduciaries actually breached their duties.

The Ninth Circuit allowed claims over an alleged disclosure of confidential health information to proceed without requiring a separate showing of financial loss. It revived state-law claims against AmeriBen after an employee allegedly emailed a spreadsheet containing members’ identifying and claims information without authorization. The court connected the asserted injury to a recognized breach-of-confidence harm. It didn’t decide that AmeriBen was liable, create a private HIPAA claim or hold that every disclosure automatically satisfies the constitutional injury requirement.

A disability claimant’s separate fiduciary-breach claim can justify discovery beyond the material used to decide benefits. Roberts Disability Law discusses Gibson, where the claimant alleged that Unum misrepresented a conversation with a treating physician. The Minnesota court’s October 5 order allowed discovery tied to that separately pleaded claim, subject to ordinary relevance and proportionality limits. It didn’t broadly reopen the benefits claim’s administrative record or decide that the alleged misrepresentation occurred.

Your ERISA Watch surveys a busy week of benefits litigation, led by the Fifth Circuit’s affirmance of a judgment against a business owner who failed to transmit employee contributions and pay health claims. Other entries address releases, fiduciary duties, arbitration and benefit disputes. In the lead case, Sonderling v. Sills, the court upheld a $209,466.34 award and a permanent ban on serving as an ERISA fiduciary. The owner’s financial-distress and delegation arguments didn’t undo the record establishing his responsibility.

Hand Benefits & Trust is asking a federal court to dismiss the Labor Department’s lawsuit over its collective investment trusts, pooled funds that combine retirement assets from many employer plans. The department’s suit challenges how the trusts were designed and run, including lending between the funds. NAPA reports the firm’s arguments that the government confuses investment-product design with fiduciary conduct and relies on unsuitable comparisons. Its October 13 motion presents the defendants’ position. The court hasn’t adopted those arguments or resolved the department’s allegations.

Former Twitter employees suing over allegedly unpaid severance benefits have reached a settlement in principle with X and Elon Musk. Their amended complaint alleges that the company failed to honor its severance plan after the takeover and misled employees about their benefits. Those are disputed allegations, not court findings. The October 9 status report says the parties are negotiating a written agreement and discloses no settlement amount. The court’s order requires a dismissal or status report by January 15, 2027, and cancels the October 22 conference while maintaining other dates except as modified. No settlement has been approved.

International Bancshares can’t preserve its plan’s arbitration requirement by cutting out restrictions on representative claims and available remedies. In an October 9 order following a Fifth Circuit remand, Judge David Ezra concluded that those restrictions were integral to the agreement under Texas law. Clauses allowing invalid provisions to be removed didn’t overcome the way the terms depended on one another. Removing them would require the court to rewrite the arbitrator’s authority. The decision addresses this agreement’s enforceability and leaves the underlying fiduciary claims unresolved.

Groom examines the dispute over who may serve on the federal vaccine advisory committee, whose recommendations help determine health plans’ preventive-care coverage. In a March 16 preliminary ruling, a Massachusetts federal judge stayed 13 challenged appointments after finding the committee likely failed federal requirements for balanced membership. The judge expressly declined to prohibit all committee meetings, leaving room for a lawfully constituted committee. The government’s appeal challenges the appointment stay without seeking to overturn the separate stay of the January childhood-vaccine schedule changes. Groom reports that the October 6 argument focused on the remedy and the plaintiffs’ right to sue. Its concern about whether the existing committee can meet should be understood in light of that distinction. The litigation doesn’t itself establish a new vaccine-coverage exclusion.

New York employers should review agreements requiring employees to repay money when employment ends before a specified date, Jackson Lewis advises. The amended Trapped at Work Act restricts those agreements but preserves conditional exceptions for transferable education credentials, bonuses and relocation assistance. Although the article discusses competing readings of the effective-date language, the official New York statute lists December 19, 2026. Qualifying tuition agreements must be separate from employment contracts, cap repayment at actual costs and prorate it over the required service period. Employers should check their forms and termination triggers against the statutory conditions, rather than assuming every repayment provision must disappear.