Every few years, promoters resurface with new “double dip” health plan products promising employees more take‑home pay and employers big employment‑tax savings. The pitch is familiar: employees pay large pre‑tax “premiums” through a cafeteria plan, then receive substantial, “tax‑free” payments back through payroll that are just shy of the pre‑tax contributions. Because the contribution was
As described in earlier Thompson Hine blog posts (here, here, here, and here), Trump accounts continue to take shape as a new employer-sponsored benefit. On August 11, 2026, the Treasury Department and IRS published proposed regulations (REG-101355-26) that answer many of the open questions we flagged previously, most significantly, how
Artificial intelligence (“AI”) tools are increasingly being deployed across the employee benefits landscape: from claims administration and customer service to investment analysis and participant engagement. While these technologies promise efficiency and cost savings, recent litigation and regulatory activity underscore that the use of AI in benefits administration carries meaningful legal and fiduciary risk. Below we
In less than three months, two federal courts of appeals have held that ERISA’s actuarial-equivalence requirement mandates reasonable actuarial assumptions, rather than assumptions that simply produce mathematically equivalent optional forms of benefits to the default form of payment. In Reichert v. Kellogg Co., decided March 16, 2026, the Sixth Circuit reversed dismissals of actions
DOL’s guidance gives employers room to fund or facilitate Trump Account contributions without creating an ERISA plan.
When Congress created Trump accounts under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, one of the questions employers quickly focused on is whether providing employees with a plan under which contributions may be made to Trump accounts would constitute
On May 21, 2026, the Supreme Court handed down a unanimous opinion in M & K Employee Solutions v. Trustees of the IAM National Pension Fund, and if you’re an employer who’s ever thought about walking away from an underfunded multiemployer pension plan, you should be paying attention.
The question was deceptively simple: when
A recent excellent New York Times article explains how a change in law first effective in 2022 has quickly come to be used by out-of-network providers to obtain significant overpayments for routine medical procedures. Not stated in the article is the impact on self-funded group health plans and the sponsors of those plans. Specifically, the
On March 30, the Department of Labor (“DOL”) issued its long-anticipated proposed regulation, “Fiduciary Duties in Selecting Designated Investment Alternatives”, that is intended to address the dual aims of (i) expanding 401(k) designated investment alternatives (“DIAs”) to funds that include alternative assets and (ii) limiting litigation risk. The impetus for the proposed regulation
As described in earlier Thompson Hine blog posts (here and here), Trump accounts provide a new private savings vehicle for eligible minor children. The Treasury Department and IRS recently released additional guidance related to these accounts within two coordinated notices of proposed rulemaking that address the critical threshold questions of (1) how Trump
Thanks to SECURE 2.0, paper is back, requiring increased use of the traditional mail system through the United States Postal Service (“USPS”). A recently proposed rule (“Proposed Rule”) from the Department of Labor (“DOL”) “narrowly implements” SECURE 2.0’s mandate requiring retirement plans to furnish paper pension benefit statements, effective