Sponsors correcting certain automatic-enrollment mistakes get more time to restore missed employer matches under the updated retirement plan correction procedure. The period deemed reasonable for those corrective matches increases from 6 months to 12 months after the month correct deferrals begin. The October 22 update also incorporates SECURE 2.0’s broader self-correction rules and its treatment of inadvertent overpayments, with exceptions and safeguards that still need to be checked for each error. Separately, the new IRA correction procedure opens May 1, 2027 for four specified types of failure, including certain missed required minimum distributions and rollover errors. That program requires an IRS application, generally with a $3,500 fee. Comments on both procedures are due January 20, 2027.

The IRS is considering another change to retirement-plan corrections, allowing sponsors to calculate corrective earnings using the Labor Department’s online calculator. That approach remains a request for comment, not an approved method under the new procedure. Brian Anderson’s overview also explains the updated employer-plan correction rules and the separate application process for certain IRA errors. Comments are due January 20, 2027.

Employers buying Medicare coverage for retirees would have another set of contract and network requirements to consider under this CMS proposal. Medicare Part D pharmacy benefit managers would have to pass through the full amount of manufacturer discounts and rebates and operate under new compensation restrictions. Medicare Advantage plans would face provider-directory checks and protections for members who rely on inaccurate listings when scheduling care. Most requirements would begin in 2028, with the first annual PBM reports due July 1, 2028 for the prior year. Comments close December 15 at 5 p.m. Eastern. This proposal concerns Medicare products, separate from Labor’s employer-plan PBM disclosure initiative.

A projected investment return may soon appear in more adviser and manager presentations. The SEC’s October 15 approval order permits FINRA members to use projections and targeted returns with audiences assessed for their financial expertise, resources and the relevance of the information. It doesn’t authorize indiscriminate retail marketing. Firms must disclose assumptions and risks and retain supporting records. A plan committee receiving such a pitch should be able to see what assumptions produce the attractive number. FINRA still needs to set the implementation date.

A multiemployer pension plan will owe PBGC $42 per participant for 2027, up from $40. Morgan Lewis points to the work behind that calculation. Properly resolving small balances and deceased-participant records may reduce the count, but losing contact with someone doesn’t erase the plan’s obligation or justify removing that person. Administrators should distinguish a benefit that has been settled from a participant who simply hasn’t been found.

Receiving special financial assistance from PBGC comes with a long reporting tail. A proposal would expand recipients’ annual submissions through 2051 to include investment policies and meeting minutes, missing-participant procedures and disclosures of criminal violations. Some material could be redacted if enough context remains. For trustees and administrators, the preparation includes keeping governance records that can support those reports. Comments are due December 15; the proposed additions aren’t final requirements yet.

Pension funding calculations need to account for the cost of running the plan as well as paying benefits. Mercer explains an IRS proposal that would include administrative expenses and PBGC premiums in the annual cost used for minimum funding, while excluding investment expenses. Bundled provider fees above $5,000 would need to be allocated, making the service breakdown relevant to the actuary’s calculation. The proposal also addresses retroactive amendments and changes awaiting IRS approval. Comments closed October 19, and the proposed rules would apply six months after finalization.

An employer contribution to a child’s Trump Account could involve considerably more work than adding a payroll deduction. At an IRS hearing, Aon’s Grace Lattyak warned that employers might have to validate accounts, transmit contributions and handle corrections separately with numerous financial institutions. PLANADVISER also reports questions about payroll taxes and whether existing payroll systems can accommodate the benefit. For employers considering it, the unresolved issue is how the administration would work across account providers, not simply whether employees would welcome another contribution.

What happens when a Trump Account’s investments drift outside the permitted limits? Retirement-industry commenters want a correction process and protection for trustees relying in good faith on public investment information. Other requests go further. Vanguard sought room for bonds and Coinbase for cryptocurrency, although the statute restricts the eligible investments. The October 20 comment deadline has passed. For providers building these accounts, the distinction matters between changes Treasury could make through guidance and changes that would require Congress.

Confidence and financial pressure coexist in MFS’s survey of 1,000 retirement-plan participants. While 41% believe they can retire when they want, six in ten expect to work longer and three quarters plan to save more. Confidence was 47% among men, 33% among women and 32% among Gen X participants. Those differences give sponsors and advisers a reason to look beyond a single workforce-wide confidence score when planning education. The survey captures expectations, not a calculation of whether participants have saved enough.

Moving a former employee’s small balance out of a retirement plan doesn’t ensure it will keep growing. PensionBee reports that 68% of automatic-rollover IRA holders lost value in the first year and 39% remained below their starting balance after eight years. Its $43 billion figure is a projection for 2030, not the amount currently held. PensionBee sells account consolidation, so its research comes with a commercial interest. The findings nevertheless put a concrete question before sponsors choosing a rollover provider. What happens to the balance after the transfer?

Medication costs can show up in retirement savings. Among GLP-1 users surveyed by Nationwide, 14% reported withdrawing retirement money, 14% reported reducing contributions and 17% reported taking on new debt. 51% worried about trading retirement security for the medication, even as 88% remained optimistic about its health benefits. These self-reported findings don’t establish that the drugs caused the financial changes. They do give health and retirement teams a shared issue to examine when assessing employees’ out-of-pocket costs.

A more generous maximum match can still fail the rules for an automatic-enrollment safe-harbor plan. NAPA’s example tests the formula at every employee contribution level, not just at the top. An enhanced formula must provide at least the basic match of 100% on the first 1% of pay and 50% on the next 5%. Its matching rate cannot increase as employees contribute more, and highly compensated employees cannot get a higher matching rate than other employees. Sponsors changing the formula need to check the full schedule before relying on the safe harbor.

Social Security benefits will rise 3.6% for 2027, about $75 a month on average. For employees approaching retirement, that announcement offers a useful opening to discuss how Social Security fits alongside workplace savings. PLANSPONSOR encourages general education without turning employer communications into individualized advice. A percentage increase is easier to use when employees understand what it changes in their retirement income and what it doesn’t resolve about their longer-term savings needs.

A pension plan paying out more than it takes in may have to sell investments during a downturn just to keep benefits flowing. Segal argues that relatively high interest rates make this a useful time to evaluate ways to reduce that risk. One approach builds a bond portfolio around upcoming payments so growth investments needn’t be sold at a bad time. Other options match investments to longer-term liabilities or transfer obligations to an insurer. The choice starts with the plan’s funding goals and cash needs, coordinated between its actuary and investment adviser.

An independent appraisal doesn’t relieve an employee stock ownership plan’s fiduciaries of their own judgment. Bradley emphasizes that limitation in the Retire Through Ownership Act, which gives statutory recognition to good-faith reliance on qualifying appraisals while preserving prudence and loyalty duties and Labor’s rulemaking authority. For trustees and transaction advisers, the question remains whether the valuation deserves that reliance. The firm is cautious about treating the new language as broad protection from litigation.

Seyfarth sees meaningful protection for closely held employer-stock transactions in the Retire Through Ownership Act’s appraisal-reliance language. Its analysis focuses on what the new statutory treatment of adequate consideration could mean for employee stock ownership plans buying shares that have no public market price. Fiduciary duties remain, so a qualifying appraisal is not a substitute for a prudent process.

Preparing for a retirement-plan committee meeting can mean searching documents and reconciling information from several providers. The AI tools described in this feature aim to automate parts of that work, including document queries, meeting preparation and fiduciary reporting; other tools focus on participant engagement. These are vendor descriptions, not independent findings that the products improve outcomes. Before adopting them, sponsors need to establish what data the tool can access, who checks its output and who remains responsible for the resulting decisions.

Most HSA dollars are invested, but most HSA owners don’t invest. Devenir reports that investments account for 52% of assets while only 11% of the 42.6 million accounts hold investments. Total assets reached $192 billion, and accounts with investments averaged $23,837. That distinction matters for employers promoting HSAs as long-term savings vehicles. The aggregate investment milestone doesn’t describe how the typical employee uses the account, or whether that employee can afford to leave money invested rather than spend it on care.

40% of FSA holders in EBRI’s 3.3 million-account database forfeited money in 2024. Among those who lost funds, the average was $404. Employers can reduce avoidable confusion by making spending deadlines and any plan-specific grace period or carryover easy to find, particularly around enrollment. The figures don’t mean every account lost $404 or that participants necessarily lost more than they saved in taxes. Most account holders, 89%, received distributions during the year.

Menopause is becoming a benefits and workplace-policy issue through several different legal routes. IFEBP identifies proposed federal legislation, research coordination and state measures, including workplace and insurance provisions in Illinois and insurance requirements in Louisiana, Maryland and New Jersey. Employers need to separate coverage mandates affecting fully insured plans from obligations that may apply in the workplace; the insurance mandates do not extend to self-funded ERISA plans. The developments described do not themselves create a new federal accommodation mandate. In the cited survey, 13% of women had left a job over symptoms and 15% had considered it.

A plan’s mental health rules can look evenhanded on paper and still make treatment harder to obtain. Proskauer highlights that tension in Labor’s enforcement guidance, which points to problems such as longer authorization times and reimbursement practices that make it difficult to retain mental health providers. Although enforcement of parts of the 2024 rule is on hold, the statutory obligation to compare treatment restrictions remains. Sponsors should know what operational data their vendors can produce, rather than relying only on a written assurance that the plan complies.

Labor’s mental health parity investigations will focus on three areas. First are separate restrictions on mental health and substance-use treatment, including exclusions. Second are medical-necessity standards and review processes. Third is network adequacy, including how providers are admitted and reimbursed. M3 Insurance explains what employers should check against those priorities. Prior authorization and other reviews must be comparable to, and no more stringent than, those used for medical and surgical benefits. The focus areas help organize a compliance review, but they don’t eliminate other enforcement or the requirement to produce the plan’s comparative analyses.

A provider directory is useful only if it helps someone find care. In a study involving more than 5,800 calls across five states, fewer than a quarter of calls to listed mental health clinicians produced an appointment. 60% went unanswered. Among calls researchers could evaluate, 56% revealed a directory error. Unanswered calls weren’t all confirmed errors, but the access problem is still substantial. Employers evaluating mental health networks need to ask about appointment availability as well as how many names appear in the directory.

Fertility-benefit buyers may be comparing prices and networks without examining differences in clinic outcomes. Shawn Redd, who works in the industry, argues that those differences deserve more attention. He cites CDC reporting across 454 clinics in which the median success rate for patients under 35 was 59.4%, with the middle half ranging from 50% to 67%. The figures aren’t adjusted for differences in patients, and his savings estimates are modeled. They support asking vendors how they evaluate clinics, not assuming that a raw success-rate ranking identifies the best provider for every employee.

A doctor’s note doesn’t automatically make a wearable device eligible for tax-free reimbursement. Miller Johnson explains IRS guidance that turns on the device’s primary purpose and the individual’s circumstances, including whether it treats a specific disease rather than supports general health. That distinction matters to employers and administrators handling health FSA and HRA claims. A vendor’s eligibility label isn’t decisive either. Accessories require separate evaluation, and ordinary documentation requirements still apply.

An alternative medical plan may require different ID cards, reports, apps and connections to other benefit vendors, even when it comes from the employer’s existing carrier. Nancy Vick urges employers to identify those differences before rollout. Her four myths concern employee confusion, savings, administrative complexity and the assumption that an alternative plan operates like a traditional one. Mercer reports that 31% of large employers plan to offer an alternative option in 2027 and 38% are considering one by 2028. Those plans and intentions are a sign of interest, not evidence that every design will save money.

Lowering employees’ costs for using selected providers can mean the employer pays a larger share of each bill. Mercer’s Tracy Watts and Neil Freedman argue that the approach pays off when better care reduces total claims enough to offset that shift. They describe lower cost sharing for higher-quality providers, primary-care-centered plans and incentives layered over an existing network. Buyers should examine how quality is measured, whether suitable providers are available where employees live and whether savings have been independently validated. Changing the incentives takes more than changing the plan’s name.

Employees will qualify sooner for San Francisco’s supplemental parental-leave pay as the city reduces the service requirement from 180 days to 90. Employers with at least 100 employees must transition by December 31, 2026; those with 20 to 99 have until December 31, 2027. The payment supplements California Paid Family Leave during bonding leave rather than creating a separate full-pay entitlement. Covered employers need their eligibility rules and payroll administration to reflect the shorter waiting period.

A retroactive Social Security award can leave a disability-plan participant owing money back to the insurer. Roberts Disability Law analyzes the October 20 decision in Doolittle upholding Hartford’s recovery of a $43,890 overpayment by withholding benefits. The policy and the participant’s signed reimbursement agreement supported that treatment, and two promptly corrected errors did not make Hartford’s decision unreasonable under the deferential review the court applied. Hartford had completed recovery and resumed payments, including a $780 refund, before the ruling. For disability-plan administrators, the case shows the importance of clear offset terms, signed reimbursement elections and a defensible calculation.

16 days separated a Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment executive’s return from parental leave and his firing, according to his complaint. He says a supervisor who had previously rated him as exceeding expectations gave him his first negative review seven days before the termination and had never documented a deficiency. He also alleges the company removed him from a conference while he was on leave. The suit claims retaliation under federal family-leave and New York laws and names the chief digital officer individually. For employers administering leave, the allegations put the timing and consistency of performance documentation in focus; they have not been adjudicated.

A manager said she had been terminated months earlier. HR said she was still employed. That conflict is central to a sales specialist’s allegations against Rare Beauty and staffing company Allwork after approved leave to care for her mother. She says the companies encouraged additional leave, then left her without work and retaliated after she complained, eventually driving her to resign. Her claims include family-leave violations and discrimination based on her association with her mother’s disability. She also argues that the companies’ representations prevent them from denying her federal leave eligibility. The complaint raises a practical coordination issue for employers using staffing firms. Who approves leave, communicates employment status and controls the return to work?

Calendar-year plan administrators have several notice deadlines approaching on December 2. Reinhart’s roundup identifies annual default-investment, automatic-enrollment and applicable safe-harbor notices, with requirements depending on the plan’s design. It also covers plan-amendment deadlines, PBGC reporting relief, preparation for the Saver’s Match and health-plan developments, including commentary on enforcement of surprise-billing arbitration awards.

An AI assistant may make an old access-control problem much easier to exploit. In Brittney Mollman’s hypothetical, the technology exposes information that users already had overly broad permission to reach. Blocking the assistant alone would leave those underlying permissions in place. Benefits teams handle medical, payroll and retirement information, making the allocation of responsibility especially important. Someone must own the access review, assess any exposure and verify that the permissions themselves have been repaired.

Who reviews the benefits vendors, and where is that decision recorded? Anne Greene uses those basic questions to explain why employers may benefit from a formal fiduciary committee even when one isn’t specifically required. Her construction-industry discussion emphasizes clear delegation, regular reviews of providers and costs, and records showing how decisions were made. Naming a committee doesn’t establish a prudent process, but assigning the work and documenting it can make gaps in oversight harder to miss.