BENEFITS DIGEST

Public-sector workers who cut back hours for caregiving likely do not know what it costs them at retirement, a new Pew study finds. A career worked at 20 hours a week produces roughly half the annual retirement income of a full-time career in a defined contribution plan, and the reductions run steeper still in defined benefit plans.

The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation has relaunched its opinion letter program, giving employers, plan sponsors, unions, and practitioners a channel to ask the agency's Office of the General Counsel how Title IV of ERISA applies to specific situations. Requests may be submitted anonymously through counsel, opinions bind only the requester, and the program excludes matters in litigation, coverage determinations, and issues pending in rulemaking. The agency's first opinion letter since 2002 issued in June, finding that annuity buyouts of frozen plan participants do not trigger section 4043 reporting.

A Massachusetts federal magistrate judge has recommended dismissal of the pension risk transfer suit against AT&T for a second time, finding the transfer was a settlor decision and that AT&T validly delegated annuity provider selection to State Street. One claim survives the recommendation, that State Street did not act with the required independence.

A settlement milestone rather than a new ruling. The court in Hoak v. Plan Administrator of the Plans of NCR Corp. preliminarily approved the $47.7 million deal for roughly 189 former NCR executives whose top hat plan annuities were converted to discounted lump sums, moving the long-litigated case to a final fairness hearing in November.

While the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) establishes baseline disclosure requirements, a well drafted SPD will go beyond those basic requirements and can play a much broader role in plan administration.

Cash balance plans grew by 1,025% over two decades, according to an Ascensus report.

The first half of 2026 has seen major litigation developments in cases concerning the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), including decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court and the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, Eleventh, and D.C. Circuits.

Mercer's GRIST desk tallies the pension risk transfer docket after Schoen v. ATI: four district courts have now dismissed PRT challenges for lack of standing while four have let them proceed, with the DOL filing amicus briefs on the sponsor side and noting that no annuity selected in a risk transfer has defaulted in thirty years. The Konya and Doherty appeals are positioned to resolve the split.

Behavioral biases reduce income product usage that otherwise could help participants during the decumulation stage. However, there are steps recordkeepers and sponsors can take to account for those biases, according to a new report.

Twenty years after the Pension Protection Act made target-date funds the default, Sway Research maps a $5.3 trillion TDF market shifting toward collective investment trusts and retirement-income features.

A new IRIC white paper argues sponsors can help participants break the psychological barrier between saving and spending. The behavioral half of the decumulation problem.

Global retirement experts suggest investment options, advice, and artificial intelligence can all help with drawing down defined contribution savings, with lessons from decumulation designs abroad.

A Pennsylvania federal court dismissed a class action challenging ATI's $1.5 billion pension risk transfer to Athene, holding under Thole that retirees whose monthly benefits remain unchanged lack standing, and that the alleged risk of future harm was too speculative. The decision deepens the district-court split over Athene-related de-risking suits, with standing rejected in Schoen, Camire, and Bueno but sustained in Konya and Doherty, both now on interlocutory appeal to the Fourth and Second Circuits. Nixon Peabody's ERISA litigation team advises sponsors to document annuity-provider selection under the DOL's six-factor guidance before closing, since no court has yet reached the fiduciary merits on a developed record.

Watkins applies his terminal-wealth breakeven framework to in-plan annuities, arguing that fiduciaries weighing guaranteed-income options should quantify what participants trade away for the guarantee rather than rest on qualitative prudence claims.

The DOL’s proposed prudence safe harbor regulations have pretty much made it “table stakes” for some responsible person somewhere to read and understand any annuity contracts on behalf of the plan which are provided as part of any DC lifetime income program.

On June 15, 2026, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (“PBGC”) issued an opinion addressing whether an annuity buyout that reduces active headcount by 20% or more would trigger a reportable event.

Modern portfolio construction has historically emphasized maximizing expected returns for a given level of risk.

Questions of portability and flexibility for both plan sponsors and participants can impede adding guaranteed retirement income offerings.

In a recent PLANSPONSOR article, “DOL Investment Safe Harbor May Not Do Much for Retirement Income,” Groom principal Kevin Walsh discussed the Department of Labor’s proposed safe harbor for fiduciaries evaluating retirement income investments.

The proposed rule does not give fiduciaries a ‘stamp of approval’ to innovate, one expert says.

WTW 2026 Defined Contribution Survey report finds employers are asking defined contribution plans to do more than they were originally designed for, prompting greater focus on retirement income, AI, governance, and measurable participant outcomes.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit recently declined to rehear its decision vacating certification of a mandatory class under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(b)(1) in Trauernicht v. Genworth Financial Inc. The Court held that fiduciary-breach claims under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of

A Nationwide survey found that, following the past year’s market volatility, 60% of advisers are more likely to recommend guaranteed income solutions.

Incorporating guaranteed income into this already popular product presents a cost-effective, ‘pension-like’ strategy.

However, when you look at it closely, especially in relation to the selection of any of these innovative DC lifetime income programs, you can see its relevance to the analyst, as least requiring they know something about it.

As discussed in a previous Holland & Knight alert, there has been an emerging wave of Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) class actions challenging employers' tobacco-free wellness programs.

Memorial Hermann Health System, a Texas nonprofit hospital system, has settled a suit under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) relating to 401(k) plan fees and fund choices.

VAPPs can help funded pension plans balance risk, support retirement income and create a more sustainable path forward.

Cash-balance plans lead the way in groundswell of support for offering a more meaningful approach to generating retirement income for cash-strapped workers.

As U.S. financial firms push toward embedding life annuities in 401(k) plans, it is useful to assess the risks, as well as the gains, associated with making annuitization the default distribution option.

insurance that protects your plan’s participants if someone who handles plan money steals or misuses those funds.

The U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled that the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) does not require multiemployer pension plans to use actuarial assumptions to calculate withdrawal liability adopted before a certain deadline.

The Labor Department filed an amicus brief with a federal appellate court addressing the standards for offloading defined benefit plan liabilities through pension risk transfers. The filing gives sponsors a first official read on how DOL views the safest available annuity analysis in the current PRT litigation wave.

One of the key fiduciary roles in the assessment of any DC lifetime income program process necessarily involves whether, and how, the plan or the vendor accommodates any required spousal consent rules related to the payout of annuities.

How rising interest rates, evolving fixed income opportunities, personalized investing, and retirement income needs are driving fiduciaries toward a more balanced approach that combines the strengths of active and passive management to improve participant outcomes.

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).

NCR Corp. has settled a class action lawsuit for almost $48 million. The five former executives and their spouses who filed the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) suit claimed that the software company failed to provide them with lifetime annuity payments, contrary to its promises.

Jim Watkins’ recent article on fiduciary prudence protocols is one of the best practical guides I have seen for investment committees. It is written as a roadmap for plan sponsors who genuinely want to satisfy ERISA’s prudence requirements before selecting an investment.

F.4th —-, 2026 WL 2084784 (7th Cir. July 20, 2026), a suit for ERISA benefits, the Seventh Circuit affirmed summary judgment for the University of Chicago, its two Section 403(b) retirement plans, and TIAA, the plans’ recordkeeper, holding that a power of attorney lacking express authority to waive spousal annuity rights could not effect the change.

Over the past several years I’ve worked as an investment expert with ERISA plaintiff law firms helping investigate and file more than 40 fixed annuity excessive fee and prohibited transaction lawsuits. Just Scratching the Surface.

As market conditions grow more complex, retirement plan fiduciaries are rethinking the traditional active-versus-passive debate.

For more than a decade, the Department of Labor’s participant fee disclosure regulation under ERISA Section 404(a)(5) has been promoted as the cornerstone of transparency in defined contribution plans.

Background Under ERISA section 4043, defined benefit plan administrators must notify PBGC when certain “reportable events” occur. One of those events is a reduction in the active participant headcount.

As the conversation around retirement income continues to evolve, Lincoln Financial’s Matt Condos says the opportunity is not to introduce something entirely new, but to extend what has already worked

They really should be fully understood by the fiduciaries involved in the selection and maintenance any lifetime income program, especially if one is attempting to comply with the DOL’s proposed prudence safe harbor.

Participants can select income features and turn a portion of their retirement savings into an annuity contract.

Fewer financial worries and increased longevity were among the benefits reported by Chilean retirees surveyed about guaranteed income.

The United States Supreme Court recently held in M&K Employee Solutions, LLC et al. v. Trustees of the IAM National Pension Fund that the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (“ERISA”)

and what trustees can do to lower administrative costs.