BENEFITS DIGEST

Three organizations that decide surprise-billing payment disputes (i.e., National Medical Reviews, Keystone Peer Review (doing business as Acentra) and MCMC) are up for recertification as federal independent dispute resolution entities, and CMS has opened a window for public petitions to deny them. The window runs October 23 through October 29, five business days. A petition needs the agency’s form and supporting documents, and CMS acknowledges petitions within ten days, which is a receipt, not a decision deadline. For the plans and administrators who live with these arbitrations, the petition window is the rare moment to put concerns about a particular entity on the record.

PBGC wants more from the multiemployer plans that received special financial assistance, the federal aid that shored up troubled union plans. Segal reports the proposed annual compliance reporting would add governance and investment records and procedures for locating missing participants, with redactions permitted, and it applies only to the plans that received the assistance, which report through 2051. Comments are due December 15. The additional reporting awaits White House paperwork approval, and plans’ existing reporting requirements stay in place.

The ERISA Industry Committee collects reactions to the Labor Department proposal that would let health plans deliver required documents electronically by default, with paper available on request. The coalition voices in the roundup want the option extended more broadly across welfare plans, and the $19.5 billion savings estimate the piece cites belongs to that wider extension, not the proposal as written. Its survey figures run 91% of participants with internet access and 78% preferring electronic delivery. This is advocacy for a pending proposal, and nothing changes for plans yet.

PBGC’s 2027 flat-rate premiums rise to $116 per participant for single-employer plans and $42 for multiemployer plans. The variable rate remains $52 per $1,000 of unfunded vested benefits, while its per-participant cap rises to $783. The maximum guaranteed benefit for a 65-year-old in a single-employer plan reaches $97,363.68 a year on a single-life annuity. Mercer also explains the separate present-value table used to restrict lump-sum payments from certain underfunded plans.

CMS’s own announcement of its marketplace verification proposal frames the rule as fraud control. Enrollees would have to clear pre-eligibility verification before advance premium tax credits and income-based cost-sharing reductions are paid, starting with 2028 coverage, with an optional verification window opening August 1, 2027 and an annual confirmation requirement after that. An enrollee who skips verification could be auto-renewed without the assistance rather than losing the insurance itself, and consumers who get no subsidy sit outside the requirement entirely. The employer connection is twofold. The existing ways of verifying whether a worker was offered employer coverage are expressly retained, so sponsors keep their current role in that check, and employees or dependents who lose marketplace assistance under the tighter process may take a fresh look at the group plan at the next enrollment. The rule published in the Federal Register on October 27, and comments are due November 27, 2026.

Sydney Halleman reports on the CMS proposal requiring marketplace enrollees to verify their eligibility before premium tax credits and income-based cost-sharing help are paid, with annual confirmation starting with 2028 coverage and a verification window opening August 1, 2027. The agency’s own estimate of 332,500 fewer enrollees a year is a projection, not an observed result. A caution for careful readers is that the article blurs the enhanced premium credits now expiring with the underlying assistance the proposal addresses, which are two different programs on two different tracks.

Marketplace enrollees would have to clear up eligibility discrepancies before advance premium tax credits and income-based cost-sharing reductions are paid, under a CMS proposal filed for public inspection October 23 and scheduled to publish October 27. Starting with 2028 coverage, enrollees would also need to affirm or update their information annually, with a verification period opening August 1, 2027, and consumers could still pick a plan while verification is pending. CMS estimates 332,500 fewer enrollees a year, $7.6 billion less in annual advance-credit spending and a 0.4% premium increase beginning in 2028, and those are projections rather than observed results. Existing ways of verifying an employer’s offer of coverage are expressly retained. The comment deadline arrives with Tuesday’s published text.

Labor is asking for suggestions about where to step into private ERISA cases. Justin Danhof, policy director of the department’s employee-benefits arm, invited an industry conference audience to identify cases where the department could weigh in through friend-of-the-court briefs or address recurring issues through guidance, and described litigation-related work on investment selection and pension risk transfers. What Danhof called abusive litigation is his characterization, and a government brief doesn’t decide a case. For sponsors and advisers, the news is a stated enforcement posture, not a new rule or ruling.

Morgan Lewis separates what changed immediately from what arrives later in the October 22 corrections guidance. The updated Employee Plans Compliance Resolution System, the IRS program for correcting retirement-plan errors, took effect on issuance, while the IRA correction program opens May 1, 2027 and runs on applications rather than self-correction. The firm also walks through the transition for 60-day rollover-waiver requests, which move out of requests for individual IRS rulings and into the new IRA program. Sponsors and IRA custodians get a map of which procedure now governs which mistake.

Temporary regulations replaced the proposed opening procedure with automatic accounts, and Boutwell Fay reports the result in numbers. Automatic accounts were opened for more than 60 million children on October 1, bringing the total to nearly 70 million. An automatic account still has to be claimed and activated by a parent or guardian, and an employer can’t simply send contributions to an unclaimed account. The firm flags open questions about how employers verify an employee’s account and how these rules fit the earlier employer-contribution proposal.

SHRM’s report on the new employee stock ownership plan appraisal-reliance law collects practitioner reaction. The recurring caution is that statutory recognition of good-faith reliance on a qualifying appraisal is not a liability safe harbor and does not erase fiduciary duties, so trustees still have to evaluate the valuation they receive. Advocacy groups’ praise for the law appears as their assessment. The piece adds employer-side perspective to a law whose practical reach courts haven’t yet tested.

Alliant’s compliance alert covers the transparency-in-coverage final rule’s changes to machine-readable files, executive attestations and the cost-sharing information plans must make available by telephone. For self-funded plans, the practical work is confirming vendor readiness and pinning down who is contractually responsible for each file and attestation.

Wrangle works through what the proposed dependent-care testing approach would mean in practice. The 55% average-benefits test compares the average dependent-care benefits of higher-paid employees with those of everyone else, and excluding nonparticipants from the math could reduce the caps and taxable excess that highly compensated employees face. Although the rules remain proposed, the [IRS permits taxpayers to rely on them](https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2026-08-11/html/2026-16314.htm) for plan years beginning before final regulations are published. Wrangle’s expectation of final rules by year-end is its forecast, not an IRS timetable.

The SEC’s examination priorities for 2027 put private-market access, conflicts of interest, cybersecurity and evolving technology on the supervisory agenda. Practitioners quoted in the article read the list as a signal for advisers serving retail investors, including retirement savers moving into less liquid investments. Examination priorities direct the staff’s attention and don’t create new duties by themselves. Advisers and the committees that hire them can use the list to anticipate what examiners will ask about.

A technical correction to the Code of Federal Regulations reinstates the provision stating that a properly paid court-order payment from the Thrift Savings Plan cannot be returned to the plan. The provision was omitted from the January 1, 2026 annual CFR edition. For practitioners handling TSP domestic-relations orders, this restores familiar text rather than announcing a new policy.

Sponsors correcting certain automatic-enrollment mistakes get more time to restore missed employer matches under the [updated retirement plan correction procedure](https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/rp-26-34.pdf). 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](https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/rp-26-33.pdf) 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](https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2026-10-20/html/2026-21393.htm) 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.

OIRA’s docket shows the Labor Department’s rule titled Improving Transparency into Pharmacy Benefit Manager Fee Disclosure concluded review on October 20 and cleared with changes made during the review, which the docket records as consistent with change. The [January proposal](https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/01/30/2026-01907/improving-transparency-into-pharmacy-benefit-manager-fee-disclosure) would require disclosure of the direct and indirect compensation pharmacy benefit managers receive, so that group health plan fiduciaries can judge whether their PBM contracts are reasonable, and the rule’s [Unified Agenda entry](https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/eAgendaViewRule?pubId=202510&RIN=1210-AB37) carries the fuller description. The cleared text is not yet public, so what the rule now says awaits Federal Register publication.

NAPA reports that the IRS regulations implementing the SECURE 2.0 automatic enrollment requirements for 401(k) and 403(b) plans have cleared White House review and could be released in the near future. [OIRA’s docket](https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/eoDetails?rrid=1440111) confirms the Treasury rule, Automatic Enrollment Requirements Under Section 414A, concluded review on October 16, likewise cleared with changes made during review. Sponsors covered by the mandate have been operating on proposed rules and notices while the final text sat in review.

President Trump signed the Retire Through Ownership Act on October 15. It allows employee stock ownership plan fiduciaries to rely in good faith on independent appraisals of privately held company stock that follow established IRS valuation principles, and their other fiduciary duties remain unchanged. The valuation question has driven much ESOP litigation because the Labor Department never finalized its own regulation, and the law permits further DOL guidance without expanding the agency’s authority. The bill passed the Senate by unanimous consent and the House 401 to 14.

The petition window closes October 22 for five organizations seeking recertification as the independent dispute resolution entities that decide federal surprise-billing payment disputes, Maximus Federal Services, ProPeer Resources, C2C Innovative Solutions, Medical Evaluators of Texas, and Federal Hearings and Appeals Services. Plans, providers, and members of the public can challenge an applicant’s qualifications through the CMS petition form with supporting evidence. The process concerns who may serve as arbitrator, not any individual payment award.

HHS will retain its 2025 civil monetary penalty amounts for 2026. Last fall’s federal funding lapse prevented the Bureau of Labor Statistics from producing the October inflation figure needed for the annual adjustment. The Office of Management and Budget consequently cancelled the 2026 adjustment in April. HHS’s notice confirms that existing penalties remain enforceable at their 2025 levels.

Aon’s compliance bulletin explains the October 6 final rules updating health plans’ machine-readable price files. For employers, a central change is the requirement to certify that the posted files are accurate. Other changes include one in-network file per provider network, aggregated allowed-amounts reporting, and quarterly rather than monthly posting. A plan can delegate the files and the attestation to a third-party administrator by written agreement, but the bulletin’s caution is that a self-insured plan may still answer for the vendor’s noncompliance. The bulletin puts the member-facing tool changes at plan years beginning January 1, 2027, the first quarterly machine-readable files at April 1, 2027, and annual utilization files at July 1, 2028.

CMS and the Labor Department announced that five employers (Amazon, Axon, Google, Meta, and Oracle) signed a statement of support for bringing electronic prior authorization to the self-funded health plans they sponsor, building on the 2025 pledge by major insurers. The commitment is voluntary, not a new mandate on self-funded plans, and the aim is to replace fax-and-phone authorization workflows with electronic exchanges regardless of how a patient’s coverage is funded. A separate CMS rule already requires certain payers to implement electronic prior authorization beginning January 1, 2027, and the employer statement extends the push into the self-funded market.

Proposed IRS regulations would exclude employees who receive no benefits from the dependent care assistance program’s 55% average benefits test, a participant-only approach that should cut testing failures and the need to cap highly compensated employees’ elections. The firm reads the change as opening a practical path to the $7,500 annual limit, already in effect for 2026, for employers that held at $5,000 over testing concerns, and notes that employers may rely on the proposed rules now. The program’s other nondiscrimination tests still apply.

Mercer’s Brian Kearney and Margaret Berger walk through the IRS’s four proposed sample forms and five-step process for plan-to-plan rollovers, a workflow that today runs on plan-by-plan paperwork and phone trees. The proposed process starts with the participant contacting the receiving plan and encourages the two plans to communicate directly and move the money electronically. The forms are optional, and using them does not itself provide special protection against a finding of noncompliance. Existing spousal-consent and rollover-notice requirements still apply.

Morgan Lewis notes the PBGC’s October 14 announcement that 2027 premiums for multiemployer pension plans will be a flat $42 per participant, a $2 increase from 2026 and 40% above the level of a decade ago. The firm’s practical points are keeping participant records accurate and identifying deceased participants, which help prevent inflated premium counts, while permissible small-balance cash-outs can reduce the number of participants counted.

On the single-employer side, PLANSPONSOR reports the PBGC’s 2027 guarantee limits rising 4.16%, putting the maximum guaranteed benefit for a 65-year-old retiree at $8,113.64 per month for a benefit paid over the retiree’s lifetime with no survivor payments. The flat-rate premium rises to $116 per participant, the variable rate stays at $52 per $1,000 of unfunded vested benefits under its statutory freeze, and the variable-rate cap reaches $783 per participant. The multiemployer guarantee is not indexed and does not change.

The monthly rate notice supplies the segment rates, yield-curve figures, and 30-year Treasury weighted averages that defined benefit plans use for funding and minimum-present-value calculations. Which table applies depends on the plan year and the elections in place, so administrators should pull the figure for their own plan rather than quote a headline rate.

CMS proposes requiring Medicare Advantage plans to verify provider directories every 90 days, to hold enrollees to in-network cost sharing when an inaccurate listing misleads them, and to report accuracy information that would later become public. On the drug side, the proposal would restrict Part D PBM compensation to flat fair-market-value service fees, require rebate pass-through and disclosures, and eliminate certain generic copayments for low-income dual-eligible enrollees starting in 2028. The [fact sheet](https://www.cms.gov/newsroom/fact-sheets/medicare-program-implementation-sections-6219-6220-6224-consolidated-appropriations-act-2026-cms) carries the details, and different provisions carry different dates. For plan sponsors the direct reach is employer-group Medicare arrangements rather than commercial self-funded plans, and comments on the [proposed rule](https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2026-21420), published in the October 20 Federal Register, are due December 15.

The IRS republished its annual special per diem rates in this week’s Internal Revenue Bulletin. The high-low substantiation method uses $329 for high-cost localities and $230 for other localities within the continental United States, with separate transportation-industry and incidental-expenses-only rates and a revised high-cost locality list. The rates have applied since October 1 for employers that use this optional substantiation method, and the applicable rate turns on the travel location and seasonal period rather than the headline numbers. Employers using the method should check their reimbursement tables against the new rates and locality dates.

Treasury asked OMB to renew its approval of Form 15397, the application a filer uses to request more time to furnish recipient statements such as Forms 1099. The notice is an extension of an existing information collection without change, meant to standardize requests that once arrived by letter. It grants no one an extension by itself, and comments on the renewal are due November 19.

Fiduciaries of employee stock ownership plans, the retirement plans that invest primarily in the sponsoring employer’s own stock, may now rely in good faith on an independent appraisal of closely held employer stock when the appraiser follows the IRS’s established valuation principles. President Trump signed the Retire Through Ownership Act on October 15, and congress.gov records it as Public Law 119-124. The two-page [enrolled text](https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/BILLS-119s2403enr/pdf/BILLS-119s2403enr.pdf) expressly preserves the fiduciary duties ERISA already imposes and the Labor Department’s rulemaking authority, and the change applies to determinations made on or after enactment. The House passed the bill 401 to 14 on September 16 after unanimous Senate passage.

CMS has opened a five-business-day window, October 16 through October 23, for petitions opposing certification or recertification of named federal surprise-billing dispute-resolution entities. The listed applicants include Maximus Federal Services, ProPeer Resources, C2C Innovative Solutions, Medical Evaluators of Texas ASO and Federal Hearings and Appeals Services. A petition needs supporting information rather than a general objection, CMS acknowledges petitions within 10 days, and applicants get a chance to respond. The entities are at the application stage, so this is an opportunity to be heard, not an announcement that anyone has been recertified.

PBGC’s rate table now carries 2027 premiums. The single-employer flat rate rises to $116 per participant from $111, the variable-rate premium holds at $52 per $1,000 of unfunded vested benefits, and the per-participant cap on that variable premium rises to $783 from $751. The multiemployer flat rate rises to $42 from $40. Sponsors budgeting 2027 administrative costs can take the figures straight from the table.

October Three reviews three bills House Democrats introduced on October 1. The Employee and Retiree Access to Justice Act would replace deferential review of benefit denials with fresh judicial review and restrict arbitration. The Protecting Workers’ Benefits Act would let defined benefit participants sue on a plan’s behalf and receive a litigation incentive of 0.5% to 1.0% of the amount recovered. The Workers’ Retirement Savings Protection Act would broaden fiduciary investment advice, including rollover advice. October Three sees little near-term prospect of enactment, and the bills create no current duties.

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](https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/10/15/2026-21056/premium-tax-credit) 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](https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/treasury-and-irs-move-to-protect-health-care-benefits-for-eligible-americans). 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](https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2026-10-14/pdf/2026-21019.pdf) 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](https://www.ssa.gov/news/en/cola/factsheets/2027.html) 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.

The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, which insures private-sector pensions, published a new set of frequently asked questions on coverage determinations, the process for getting an official answer on whether a plan falls under PBGC insurance at all. Sponsors or their actuaries, accountants, attorneys and third-party administrators can ask at any time, and the FAQs list exactly what to send in. Plans claiming an exemption need to provide more detail. A plan said to cover only a substantial owner must document ownership percentages going back 60 months, stock options and family relationships. A small professional service employer must show it has never had more than 25 active participants since 1974 and describe the owners’ professions and education. Church plans and Puerto Rico based plans get their own checklists. PBGC says incomplete submissions and slow responses are the main causes of delay, and an unfavorable answer can be appealed to its Appeals Board.

Representatives Bobby Scott and Mark DeSaulnier, the ranking Democrats on the House Education and Workforce Committee and its pensions subcommittee, sent an October 8 [letter](https://democrats-edworkforce.house.gov/imo/media/doc/scott_desaulnier_letter_to_ebsa_re_erisa_enforcement_and_staffing.pdf) to Assistant Secretary Daniel Aronowitz questioning whether the Employee Benefits Security Administration, the Labor Department agency that enforces ERISA, can still police benefit plans covering 155 million Americans after a wave of departures. The sharpest number they cite comes from a January 2026 inspector general report. EBSA is down to roughly one investigator for every 21,400 plans it oversees, from one per 13,900 two years earlier. The lawmakers asked for detailed workforce data by October 22. Josh Oppenheimer of the American Retirement Association reads the letter as a preview of oversight hearings and subpoenas if Democrats retake the House.

The amended Transparency in Coverage rules published in the Federal Register on October 6, and publication turns the compliance windows into fixed dates. The rules take effect December 7, 2026. The pricing file changes, including the shift to one in-network file per provider network and quarterly updates, apply March 6, 2027. The new contextual files and the required website footer link follow on September 6, 2027, and the existing 2020-rule requirements stay in force until each date arrives. The self-service tool changes, including the right to request cost-sharing estimates by phone and a new balance billing caution statement, apply for plan years beginning on or after January 1, 2027, a date the agencies declined to extend despite requests for six to twelve more months. For sponsors the near-term work is contractual. The rules let an insured plan shift these duties to its insurer by written agreement, while self-funded plans keep ultimate responsibility no matter who builds the files, so administrator and vendor agreements signed this fall should name the March and September dates and the new accuracy attestations.

A federal judge in Austin approved a settlement between the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division and Texas-based University Village Memory Care over its treatment of Army National Guard Combat Medic Specialist Maria Opara. The suit alleged the facility demoted, or attempted to demote, Opara from her night shift supervisor position to a lower-paying one because she took leave to fulfill military orders, then terminated her when she refused the forced demotion. The settlement pays Opara $15,000 and requires the facility to update its USERRA policies and train every employee on them. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon emphasized that each step was independently unlawful, the demotion over her service and the termination for refusing it. Military leave policies deserve the same documentation discipline employers give FMLA.

The Labor Department, HHS and Treasury finalized amendments to the Transparency in Coverage rules on Monday, October 5. The 2020 rules made health plans and insurers publish machine-readable files of their negotiated rates, and the files proved so large and duplicative that they were difficult to use. The amendments shrink them. Plans will produce one in-network file per provider network rather than one per plan, drop provider-rate combinations that are unlikely to be paid given the provider’s specialty, move in-network and out-of-network updates from monthly to quarterly, and use a standardized format for the pricing files, findable through a required link in the website footer. Out-of-network reporting expands, with the disclosure threshold dropping from 20 claims to 11. Accountability tightens too. The rules add accuracy attestations and require plans to identify the official responsible for the data, and participants gain the right to request their cost-sharing estimates by phone for plan years beginning on or after January 1, 2027. The long-deferred prescription drug file also gets a timetable, laid out in the [agencies’ press release](https://www.cms.gov/newsroom/press-releases/new-regulations-make-it-easier-find-compare-report-healthcare-pricing-coverage-information) rather than the rule text, with a standardized format targeted for around May 2027 and drug files expected starting in December 2027 and monthly thereafter. The in-network and out-of-network file changes apply five months after the rules publish in the [Federal Register](https://www.federalregister.gov/public-inspection/2026-20447/transparency-in-coverage), and the new contextual files follow at eleven months.

The initial 2026-2027 Priority Guidance Plan lists 121 projects the agencies intend to prioritize, and the benefits entries sketch the year ahead. From the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the plan includes Trump Account guidance, regulations on the expanded employer child care credit, and guidance on the paid family and medical leave credit. The retirement entries run from an update to the Employee Plans correction program and a new program for correcting IRA mistakes, through SECURE 2.0 guidance including the saver’s match and student-loan matching contributions, to electronic-delivery modernization and defined benefit funding guidance. Other projects address fringe benefits and VEBAs, the tax-exempt trusts some employers use to fund benefits. For executive pay, the plan lists regulations on the deduction limit for high pay at public companies and the parallel excise tax at tax-exempt organizations. The list sets the agencies’ priorities for the coming year. It doesn’t change existing requirements or promise when any project will be finished.

Treasury explains how parents and guardians can claim the Trump Accounts that automatic enrollment created. The official app is the channel, a parent or guardian verifies identity and relationship to the child, and families with questions are pointed to TrumpAccounts.gov. The announcement doesn't change the employer-contribution rules the agencies proposed in August, which are still proposals, not final rules.

The Senate confirmed Keith Sonderling as Secretary of Labor on Wednesday, 47 to 41. He has served as the department's deputy secretary and, before that, as its acting head, so the benefits agenda he inherits is one he already helped run, from the alternative-assets executive order follow-through to the proxy voting guidance and EBSA's enforcement docket.

Ranking Member Bobby Scott is pushing a trio of bills he says belong in any future SECURE 3.0 package. The first would require that one-time retirement advice, including rollover recommendations, be given in the saver's best interest, and would stop advisers from avoiding fiduciary status through fine print saying their advice isn't the main basis for a decision. The second would expand participants' ability to sue over pension-plan mismanagement, responding to the Supreme Court's limits on standing in its 2020 Thole decision. The third, co-sponsored with Rep. Mark DeSaulnier and Sen. Tina Smith, would bar forced arbitration and class action waivers in ERISA plans and would outlaw the plan terms that give claim administrators deferential court review of their own benefit denials. The bills have been introduced but haven't become law. They map where Democrats want the statute to go.

Treasury and the IRS have released their annual list of 121 guidance projects. This year's list covers October 1, 2026, through September 30, 2027, matching the federal fiscal year for the first time. The benefits entries are familiar. Trump Accounts guidance anchors the budget-law implementation section. A single entry carries the SECURE 2.0 projects, covering the saver's match, student loan matching, long-term part-time employees, emergency savings accounts, and automatic enrollment. A planned update to retirement-plan error correction would add a new resolution system for IRAs. The deregulation section carries electronic-delivery rules for participant notices and elections, defined benefit funding regulations, and, as [Groom notes](https://www.groom.com/resources/new-irs-treasury-plan-continues-to-list-overdue-veba-guidance-102o3yq), long-promised regulations for welfare benefit funds, including the tax-exempt trusts many employers use to fund health and welfare benefits, that have appeared on the list for years without a published rule. The list sets priorities, not deadlines.

CMS wants comments on what a fair pharmacy contract looks like. A new request for information begins implementing a 2026 budget law amendment that requires the Secretary to set reasonable and relevant standards for the contracts Part D plans and their pharmacy benefit managers offer pharmacies, standards due by April 2028 and applying to plan years starting January 1, 2029. The questions reach well beyond Medicare mechanics: whether pharmacies are paid more or less than drugs cost them to buy, pricing guarantees measured across all drugs rather than drug by drug, whether Medicare contracts subsidize PBMs' commercial business, discounts under the federal 340B drug pricing program, which drugs get labeled specialty drugs, and what happens when the PBM and the pharmacy share an owner. Employer plan sponsors have seen every one of those issues in their own PBM negotiations, and standards CMS writes for Part D have a way of becoming the reference point for the commercial market. Comments are due November 23, 2026.

The fourth round of Israel-related tax relief is the broadest yet. Acts due on or after September 30, 2026 and before September 30, 2027 are postponed to September 30, 2027 for affected taxpayers, a group that includes residents and businesses in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza, relief workers assisting there, taxpayers whose return preparer or records are located there, and spouses on joint returns. The postponed acts sweep in making contributions to a qualified retirement plan, along with return filing, payment, Tax Court petitions, and refund claims, and acts already postponed under the three prior notices roll forward another year for taxpayers who remain eligible. The IRS applies the relief automatically to taxpayers whose address of record is in the covered area; others call the disaster hotline. Plan administrators with affected participants should flag the postponement, since a contribution that looks late on its face may be timely under the notice.

The Trump Account auto-enrollment proposal has been published in the Federal Register. Comments are due November 30, 2026. The proposal would pair the temporary regulations' automatic account creation with rules for the claiming process and for qualified general contributions, and a scheduled October 15 public hearing on the related employer-contribution rules has been [switched to telephonic only](https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/09/30/2026-20021/employer-contributions-to-trump-accounts-and-nondiscrimination-rules-for-dependent-care-assistance). The rules mainly concern how Treasury will create and administer the accounts. Jim Earle of Troutman Pepper Locke [told SHRM](https://www.troutman.com/insights/what-trump-account-auto-enrollment-means-for-employers) the temporary and proposed rules don't directly affect employers or change the separately proposed rules for employer contributions. The comment window is the place to press questions about how claiming will work when employers start funding accounts.

New Trump Account rules let governments and charities fund equal contributions for every eligible child in a class defined by birth year and geography, and those contributions can now arrive as publicly traded stock rather than cash. Donated stock generally must be held for five years before it is sold and reinvested in the index funds the accounts otherwise require. Until accounts are claimed, the assets of automatically created accounts are invested together through a master trust while Treasury keeps ownership records for each child. The preamble names the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation's $6.25 billion pledge, to children born between 2016 and 2024 in lower-income ZIP codes, as the kind of giving the rules are designed to attract, and it gives charitable donors certainty that these contributions qualify for deductions. Comments on the companion proposed rule are due 60 days after it publishes in the Federal Register.

The IRS is clearing out old guidance. Notice 2026-58 declares 71 revenue rulings, revenue procedures, notices, and announcements obsolete under the administration's deregulatory executive orders, the third round in the effort after earlier notices covering 9 and 83 documents. Nothing here repeals a current benefit protection. The listed items are expired or superseded, including Notice 96-8, the 1996 guidance on calculating lump sum distributions from cash balance plans, which Congress superseded in the Pension Protection Act of 2006, and financial-crisis-era funding relief for multiemployer pension plans whose election windows closed years ago. Sponsors with plan documents or procedures that still cite any listed item should confirm what replaced it.

CMS has paused registration for federal Marketplace agents and brokers who don't have a 2026 Exchange agreement. The pause took effect September 22 and is scheduled to run until February 1, 2027. Brokers who already hold 2026 agreements aren't affected. CMS cites more than 624,000 complaints about unauthorized enrollments or plan switching from 2023 through 2025. In a separate action, the agency canceled about 315,000 policies covering more than 760,000 people on August 31. Newly registered brokers accounted for about 11 percent of brokers with active enrollments but received about 30 percent of the 569 termination notices issued in July and August. HHS skipped advance notice and comment, saying advance warning could prompt a rush to register. Comments on the interim final rule are due November 21.

PBGC expanded its merger FAQs for multiemployer plans that received special financial assistance, adding examples of the withdrawal liability modifications available to merged building and construction industry plans under its merger regulation. The headline modification lets a merged plan compute a withdrawing employer's share from its share of contributions rather than unfunded vested benefits, which keeps assessments closer to what the rescued plan would have produced on its own and helps show PBGC that a merger won't increase its risk of loss. The agency's worked examples show the stakes: in one scenario the default method zeroes out a $2.5 million assessment that the modification mostly preserves. The update landed the same day as the attrition-event reporting waiver we covered Monday, and the same week a Maryland decision below shows how much can turn on who bears withdrawal liability.

Several major benefits rules are awaiting White House review, the last stop before publication. EBSA's automatic portability exemption arrived September 14 as a final rule with a statutory deadline. Its PBM fee disclosure transparency rule has been there as a final since July 23. Treasury sent two Trump Accounts rulemakings on September 18, an interim final rule and a companion proposal under new section 530A. And Treasury's final rule on automatic enrollment under section 414A has been in review since June.

Pension plans have one less report to file for now. Technical Update 26-1 temporarily waives the year-end “attrition event” report for deadlines on or after September 18. The report normally applies when active participation falls below 80 percent of its start-of-year level, after adding back departures reported separately as single-cause events. PBGC concluded that these reports “rarely identify circumstances warranting additional agency reviews” and often burden frozen plans with few active participants. The waiver lasts until a final rule changing the requirement takes effect. Other event-reporting duties, including single-cause reductions, remain in place.

The mechanics behind the First Thing, from the bill text. The new ERISA §3(18)(B) would let an ESOP fiduciary rely in good faith on a fair-market-value determination by an independent valuation expert or business appraiser who “relied upon the principles and methodologies set forth in Internal Revenue Service Revenue Ruling 59-60,” as the IRS amplifies and modifies it over time (weighted earnings, assets, and comparable-company analysis). Two caveats matter for counsel. The bill expressly leaves ERISA §404's prudence duties untouched, so the safe harbor would protect the price standard, not a sloppy process. And the Labor Department could still issue regulations. It would apply to valuations made on or after enactment.

The question plan sponsors have been asking, answered from the source. Discretionary SECURE and SECURE 2.0 amendments, the features a plan chose to adopt, must be adopted by December 31, 2026, the Notice 2024-2 deadline, now about three and a half months away. Required amendments run on a different clock: generally the end of the second calendar year after the provision lands on the IRS's annual Required Amendments List. Collectively bargained plans, governmental plans and public-school 403(b) plans get later dates. The article also previews what will land on future Required Amendments Lists, including final rules on automatic enrollment, long-term part-time employees and required minimum distributions, each carrying its own two-year amendment window. The task between now and year-end is sorting every adopted feature into the right column.

The Field Assistance Bulletin got the headlines last week; this page is the working document. EBSA has posted a plain-language catalog of the warning signs it looks for in mental health parity investigations, organized around the three treatment restrictions the Department said on September 8 it will focus on: separate treatment limitations including exclusions, medical-necessity standards and review processes, and network adequacy. The page flags problem language in plan documents and problem patterns in operations, gives fiduciaries questions for selecting and monitoring service providers, and describes seven examples of voluntary fixes following DOL investigations. Two examples of what draws attention: a plan that excludes addiction-treatment medications such as methadone, naltrexone or buprenorphine while covering comparable medications for medical conditions, and a plan requiring burdensome manual paperwork to approve mental health treatment while running automated approvals for medical care. It closes with advice for plans facing a DOL review, starting with having the comparative analyses ready. Our thanks to the reader who sent along [Aon's client bulletin](https://img.response.aonunited.com/Web/AonUnited/%7Bf7d62089-816c-4d0d-9788-d5c2e1616625%7D_DOL_Issues_Guidance_on_Mental_Health_Parity.pdf) flagging the page; [Foley's compliance-traps alert](https://www.foley.com/insights/publications/2026/09/mental-health-parity-compliance-traps-dol-guidance-warns-what-to-watch-out-for) covers the same ground from the plan sponsor's chair.

Independent dispute resolution, the federal process for resolving surprise-billing payment disputes between plans and providers, is getting a new front door. CMS's IDR Gateway page lays out the transition: account creation is open now, the full move comes late this year, and the current web forms stop working January 15, 2027, with one narrow resubmission exception. Anyone who processes disputes, represents parties or submits IDR forms must enroll and complete identity verification, only U.S.-based users may access the system, and where a third-party administrator handles disputes it is the administrator that registers. [Bracewell's client alert](https://www.bracewell.com/resources/no-surprises-act-idr-portal-changes/) reads the payer-registration requirement as good news for providers, who will finally know who they are negotiating with, and predicts the accompanying response requirement should keep more disputes from escalating to full arbitration, while cautioning that the portal does nothing about the process's biggest unsolved problem, collecting payment after a determination. Plans and their administrators should sort out who will register and handle disputes before the old forms shut off.

The Commission proposes rescinding the 2010 pay-to-play rule, Advisers Act Rule 206(4)-5, which bars advisers from providing compensated advisory services to government clients for two years after covered political contributions. Chairman Atkins calls the rule overly prescriptive and would leave political contribution policing to state and local law. Comments run for 60 days after Federal Register publication, and advisers to public retirement plans are the audience most directly affected.

Field Assistance Bulletin 2026-03, addressed by Assistant Secretary Daniel Aronowitz to the agency's enforcement staff, sets out how EBSA will enforce the mental health parity law's nonquantitative treatment limitation requirements while the 2024 final rule remains in nonenforcement status. The bulletin identifies three priority areas. Blanket exclusions applied only to mental health and substance use disorder benefits, medical necessity standards including prior authorization and concurrent and retrospective review, and network adequacy with attention to provider admission standards and reimbursement methodologies. Proprietary clinical guidelines may be used but must be produced on request to investigators and participants.

The companion to the enforcement bulletin, and the piece plan sponsors will actually use. The page catalogs the red flags EBSA associates with parity problems in written plan terms, among them exclusions that apply only to mental health and substance use disorder benefits, age limits without medical comparators, stricter medical necessity criteria, and disproportionate prior authorization requirements. It then lists the operational patterns that draw attention even when the documents look clean, such as slower authorization timelines for mental health claims, manual processing where medical claims run automated, thinner network recruitment, and higher out of network utilization. A closing set of monitoring practices pairs each of the bulletin's three focus areas with side by side comparisons a plan can run now.

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.

Proposed regulations in this morning's Federal Register would write into the regulations what Revenue Ruling 71-447 and the case law behind it established decades ago, that a racially discriminatory private school is not tax exempt. Two things are new. The rule reaches every private school from kindergarten through universities and trade schools, and it treats race-based criteria as discrimination for any purpose, sweeping in diversity-motivated scholarships, donor-restricted funds, and other school-supported programs. Religious admissions criteria survive if they are genuinely religious rather than proxies for ancestry or ethnicity. If finalized, the rule applies to taxable years beginning after May 31, 2027, and comments are due 60 days after publication.

House Education and Workforce Committee Chairman Tim Walberg and Workforce Protections Subcommittee Chairman Ryan Mackenzie have asked the DOL Inspector General to expand its information-sharing audit beyond EBSA, the Wage and Hour Division, and the Office of the Solicitor, the three agencies covered by the IG's June 30 report on the Department's common interest agreements with outside litigants. The August 26 letter asks whether the same informal sharing practices extended to other major DOL enforcement agencies.

Federal regulators will not enforce a rule requiring wellness program rewards to be paid retroactively to the start of the plan year when a participant meets a reasonable alternative standard midyear, as long as the plan pays the reward for the rest of the year. The guidance also confirms that the reasonable alternative standard notice is required only in materials that actually describe the program's terms, not in materials that merely mention it.

IRS/Treasury proposed rule would exclude investment management fees from the plan-related expenses counted in a plan's target normal cost. It would also let sponsors adopt benefit-increasing amendments after the plan year ends, up to the tax return deadline, and still have them reduce that prior year's required contribution, potentially lowering minimum funding obligations for single-employer defined benefit plans.

The IRS proposed the first comprehensive update to the section 430 minimum-funding regulations in years, finally implementing amendments from WRERA, SECURE, and SECURE 2.0. The substantive changes actuaries will care about: investment management expenses are excluded from target normal cost, with a $5,000 threshold mirroring Schedule C itemization; plans adopted after year-end but before the return due date count as adopted on the last day of the year for funding purposes; and benefit-increasing amendments adopted after the valuation date can enter the funding math if they pass a new disproportionality test. Comments are due October 19, and the rules would apply to plan years beginning six months after finalization, with earlier reliance permitted.

The Departments posted a statement confirming that the Fifth Circuit's August 11 en banc decision in Texas Medical Association v. HHS affirmed portions of a district court judgment striking certain regulations and guidance on how the qualifying payment amount is calculated. The Departments say they are reviewing the opinion and anticipate issuing guidance shortly, and that the Federal IDR process remains operational. Until that guidance issues, the QPA methodology the rules prescribed has no replacement.

The Departments released a timeline guide fixing the applicability date for each piece of the June Federal IDR Operations final rules. Two dates matter most for group health plans: the revised batching rules reach disputes whose open negotiation period begins on or after November 1, 2026, and the new remittance advice coding requirements attach to items and services furnished on or after January 1, 2027.

DOL's semiannual regulatory agenda, where EBSA rulemakings get sequenced. The notable thing is how empty it is: the EBSA section carries exactly one entry, the IDR Operations rule, and that rule was already finalized on June 4. In other words, EBSA currently has no pending rulemaking on the public agenda at all.

The federal IDR process moves from single-use web forms to a centralized IDR Gateway late this year, with account registration opening September 15. Practical note for sponsors: a plan using a TPA does not register itself, but should confirm before September 15 that its TPA holds the administrator role.

The Departments' first official acknowledgment of this week's Fifth Circuit decision in the long-running Texas Medical Association litigation over the No Surprises Act's qualifying payment amount methodology, posted to CMS's No Surprises Act notices page. The statement is brief; the ruling it responds to is not. See The First Thing above.

Implementing SECURE 2.0 section 324, the IRS proposes four optional sample forms and standardized procedures for rollovers between employer plans or between a plan and an IRA, aiming to replace today's paper-check-and-fax friction with a predictable process. Use of the forms would be optional and no safe harbor attaches yet; comments are due October 23, 2026.

Treasury and the IRS proposed the framework for employer Trump account contribution programs: a separate written plan, eligibility classes tested under DCAP-style nondiscrimination rules including a 90% sliding-scale safe harbor, written employee notification, and W-2 reporting, with employees able to exclude up to $2,500 per year of employer contributions. The proposal also updates the section 129 DCAP nondiscrimination rules themselves, reflecting the OBBBA's increase of the dependent care exclusion to $7,500. Employers may rely on the proposed rules now; comments are due September 25 and a public hearing is set for October 15.

Private letter ruling addressing the section 4980 transfer of surplus assets from a terminating defined benefit plan to a replacement defined contribution plan. A PLR binds only its recipient.

Rev. Proc. 2026-30 updates the application procedures in Rev. Proc. 2026-4 to streamline requests for letter rulings.

Aon's compliance team breaks down the DOL's newly proposed electronic disclosure safe harbor for group health plans, including who counts as a covered individual, what documents are covered, the required Notice of Internet Availability, and a rule that blocks disclosure by email itself due to PHI concerns. Comments on the proposed rule are due September 21, 2026.

Lockton reviews the DOL's newly proposed rule letting group health plan administrators default to posting disclosures online and notifying participants by email instead of mailing paper copies, with participants still able to request paper or opt out entirely. Comments on the proposed rule are due September 21, 2026.

The Department of Labor recently issued proposed regulations that would implement sweeping revisions to long-standing electronic disclosure safe harbors for health and welfare plans.

On July 23, 2026, the Department of Labor (DOL) issued proposed regulations that would significantly expand the ability of group health plans to furnish required ERISA disclosures electronically (“Proposed Rule”).

a change DOL estimates could lift e-delivery rates from about 68% to 90% and save $402 million a year.

New federal guidance is providing greater certainty around Trump Accounts and expanded their potential application beyond simple savings.

New federal guidance is providing greater certainty around Trump Accounts and expanded their potential application beyond simple savings.

Candidly releas es Trump Accounts guidance; OakPath launches per sonal coach ‘ Aggi ’ for retirees; and Vestmark o pens AI r esearch c enter.

EBSA's 2026 regulatory agenda lists ~20 guidance projects in pre-/proposed/final rule stages, including the fiduciary investment-selection rule (comments analyzed through August, no target date), the

EBSA sent its replacement for the 2022 Biden-era ESG rule to OIRA on June 30, 2026; agenda target release July 2026. Expected to restrict fiduciary consideration of climate/social factors under the

Transfer-tax safe harbor for individual donors who contribute to Trump accounts under IRC §530A. If specified conditions are met, contributions are treated as completed gifts that are not future

Eric Dyson’s review of comments to the DOL on its proposed “Fiduciary Duties in Selecting Designated Investment Alternatives” regulation unearthed a common challenge: How should fiduciaries evaluate

HDHP/§223 OOP measured in-network only (§223(c)(2)(D); a higher out-of-network OOP max does NOT defeat HDHP status; Notice 2004-2 Q&A-4, Notice 2004-50 Q&A-15/19). Deductible=floor, OOP=ceiling. MA

EBSA enforcement-priority shift: 'will not regulate through enforcement'; focus on significant-harm / bad-faith cases; pending and proposed ESOP valuation investigations reviewed against a fairness

Proposed rule requiring PBMs servicing group health plans to disclose direct and indirect compensation to plan fiduciaries, extending the ERISA §408(b)(2) service-provider fee-disclosure framework