BENEFITS DIGEST

Joshua Dietch of NMG Consulting argues that the growth of pooled employer plans is changing who controls the relationship with retirement advisers. By his firm’s numbers, the share of advisers recommending fully bundled arrangements has grown from 40 percent in 2015 to about half today, more than half of DC specialist advisers are interested in pooled plans against less than a third of wealth advisers, and winning the adviser can now mean winning the next ten plans that adviser brings. For employers considering a pooled plan, Dietch raises a practical question. Does its growing size primarily benefit employers, advisers or providers?

Congress made pooled employer plans possible in the SECURE Act without settling how they fit the securities laws. The “single trust” exemptions that keep benefit plans from registering with the SEC read like they were written for one employer at a time, because they were. A new Carlton Fields explainer walks through [the SEC staff statement](https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/speeches-statements/im-staff-statement-pooled-employer-plans-050426) from May that addressed the mismatch: the staff will not object if a PEP treats itself as a single-employer plan for those exemptions. The practical payoff concerns collective investment trusts. The staff also described how CITs can accept PEPs covering self-employed participants under Rule 180, and the required financial sophistication can be assessed at the pooled plan provider level. The statement does not change the law, but it gives providers a clearer route to offering lower-cost CITs alongside mutual funds.

Advisory Opinion 2026-02A, the agency's first since May, addresses a health trust sponsored by an association of NAPA auto parts stores and repair centers covering more than 3,500 employees. EBSA concluded the participating employers could, at least in form, constitute a bona fide employer group under ERISA section 3(5), so the arrangement could be a single multiple employer plan. Whether the employers control the program in substance is an inherently factual question the opinion declines to decide. The letter confirms the trust is a MEWA and reserves judgment on fully insured status because the insurance contracts were not examined, while noting that nothing in the submission suggested the plan would fail that test if the insurer keeps first line responsibility for all claims. The opinion follows the path marked by Advisory Opinion 2024-02A for association coverage run through an employer controlled trust.

The firm's quarterly update covers the quarter ended June 30. The lead item for benefits readers is the May 5 SEC staff guidance on pooled employer plans, in which the staff said it will not object if PEPs rely on the securities-law exemptions widely applicable to tax-qualified retirement plans and confirmed that employers offering their own securities through a PEP may use a Form S-8 registration statement. The update also notes the SEC's inflation adjustment raising the qualified client thresholds effective June 29.

If a pooled employer plan absorbs the lion's share of fiduciary and administrative responsibility, what role remains for the advisor? NAPA argues the answer is a redefinition, not a reduction.

The PEP merges fiduciary outsourcing, payroll connectivity, and more to simplify administration.

What larger retirement plan sponsors stand to gain and give up in a pooled employer plan created under the SECURE Act of 2019.

A Cerulli report found that 71% of recordkeepers call the pooled employer plans a major or moderate business priority.

More recordkeepers are seeing pooled employer plans as a tool for future business growth

According to a Georgetown report, plan sponsors should evaluate pooled employer plans’ fees, providers’ potential conflicts of interest and the challenges of exiting the plan.

New PEP underscores commitment to scaling pooled plans and expanding retirement access for nonprofits; Newport tabbed as pooled plan provider and administrative fiduciary while Aprio providing