BENEFITS DIGEST

Saul Ewing’s monthly roundup examines how courts evaluate disability evidence. A Massachusetts court rejected every argument a claimant raised against a benefits termination, including his attempt to rely on a physician report submitted nine months after the final appeal decision, which the court would not consider. A California court said an insurer need not take subjective complaints at face value. An Oregon court reinstated benefits for a claimant with young-onset Parkinson’s disease, crediting her personal statements and treating physicians over doctors who reviewed the records without examining her. The Eighth Circuit refused to credit a treating physician who said the claimant could do seated work for two years and changed his opinion only after benefits were terminated. And an Alabama dispute over who should receive life insurance proceeds went to the insured’s daughters, after the court found a telephonic beneficiary designation invalid under the policy and the purported marriage void, noting that federal courts routinely look to state law to identify a spouse under an ERISA plan.

A clean field guide to the court orders that divide retirement benefits in divorce, read against the Labor Department's own guidance.

In Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. v. Williams, a General Motors life insurance participant tried to name a new beneficiary in a 2020 phone call to MetLife, and the court held the attempt failed because the plan required a signed written designation, with phone elections covering enrollment only. The court declined to apply substantial compliance, and under the plan's fallback provision the claimant could take only as a surviving spouse, a status the court rejected because her marriage to the participant was void under Georgia law while her prior marriage remained undissolved. The participant's daughters prevail, and the contrast with last week's Liu v. Kaiser is instructive. A requirement written into the plan gets enforced; a procedure that lives only in administrative practice does not.

Two sets of proposed regulations address how employer-sponsored Trump Account contribution programs will operate and how account assets may be invested before a beneficiary turns 18. Seyfarth walks through the requirements, including a separate written plan document, a $2,500 per-employee cap on tax-favored Section 128 contributions, cafeteria plan elections for employee pre-tax contributions to dependents' accounts, and nondiscrimination testing that tracks the dependent care FSA rules. Contributions default to an S&P 500 index ETF with ESG index funds off the table, and open questions remain, from tracking eligible dependents to coordinating contributions across a controlled group.

In Liu v. Kaiser Permanente Employees Pension Plan, No. 24-4303 (9th Cir. Aug. 31, 2026), the Ninth Circuit held that the substantial compliance doctrine applies to benefit elections as it does to beneficiary designations, reversing dismissal of a claim by the sister of a participant who submitted a lump-sum election form while hospitalized with cancer and died three days later. The panel rejected the plan's argument that the doctrine is limited to beneficiary changes, and the $676,981 claim proceeds on remand.

Pension plan wrongfully denied benefits to a sister's designated beneficiary where a lump-sum election was not finalized due to illness; the court reversed, holding the substantial compliance doctrine applies.

Seyfarth reviews the IRS's latest proposed Trump Account guidance, which addresses employer contribution programs and the eligible-investment rules confining account assets to low-fee, broad-market index funds during a beneficiary's childhood.

Treasury and the IRS have issued proposed rules addressing the opening and administration of Trump Accounts, employer contribution programs, and eligible investments during a beneficiary's childhood.

The July 23 proposed rule would give group health plan administrators an additional safe harbor for electronically furnishing required disclosures to participants and beneficiaries.

On July 22, 2026, the DOL issued a proposed rule with a new safe harbor allowing group health plan administrators to provide required ERISA documents to participants and beneficiaries electronically.

Naming a trust as your IRA beneficiary can help you meet important estate planning goals. However, if you are considering this, you should proceed with caution.

Treasury and the IRS proposed rules defining what a Trump Account can hold before the beneficiary turns 18: generally an unleveraged mutual fund or ETF tracking a broad U.S. equity index such as the S&P 500, charging no more than 0.1 percent in annual fees, with the trustee selecting a default fund when no election is made. The August 11 rules told employers what they may contribute; this one tells trustees what the money may sit in. Comments are due October 20, 2026.

The Northern District of Georgia preliminarily approved a $47.7 million settlement of claims by roughly 189 former NCR executives and their beneficiaries over a top hat plan. Groom's lesson for nonqualified plans: section 409A compliance does not excuse departing from what the plan document promises.

In Havlik, the University of Chicago rejected a beneficiary change form that would have redirected an ERISA-qualified Section 403(b) retirement plan participant’s benefits from his spouse to trusts, and the Seventh Circuit looked to state law to decide whether the power of attorney was valid to waive the spousal benefit.

On July 23, 2026, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Employee Benefits Security Administration (“EBSA”) published a proposed rule (the “Proposed Rule”) that would create a new, additional safe harbor for group health plan administrators to furnish participant and beneficiary disclosures electronically by default.

On July 23, 2026, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) issued proposed regulations that would establish a new safe harbor allowing group health plan administrators to use electronic media to furnish documents and information to participants and beneficiaries under ERISA.

A recent decision by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Havlik v. University of Chicago highlights the importance of promptly resolving deficient retirement plan beneficiary changes and designations.

This proposed rule sets forth a new, additional safe harbor for group health plan administrators to use electronic media (e.g., email or web portal) to furnish documents and information to participants and beneficiaries of plans subject to the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA).