The Daily Brief for Benefits Professionals
BenefitsWire
Retirement Plans
August 24, 2026
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8 items · ~3 min read
Top of the Brief
Annuities Can Be Safer in 401(k)s—Just Add a Downgrade Clause“A fiduciary may select an insurance company partly because it has strong financial ratings—perhaps AA or better. But ratings change. If that insurer later falls below the credit standard that justified its selection, the plan should have a contractual right to transfer the guarantee or assets to another financially strong insurer without a surrender charge, market-value adjustment or other participant penalty. As I argued in my earlier article, if the insurer’s credit quality was important enough to justify buying the annuity, deterioration in that credit quality should give the fiduciary a meaningful ability to act. There is precedent for this approach. Stable-value products have long used ”
In this issue
Regulatory Action and Guidance (2) · Retirement Plans (1) · Litigation (3) · General Benefits (2)
Regulatory Action and Guidance
2 items“An open meeting of the Taxpayer Advocacy Panel's Joint Committee will be conducted. The Taxpayer Advocacy Panel is soliciting public comments, ideas, and suggestions to improve customer service at the Internal Revenue Service.” MORE >>
Source: Federal Register
“The IRS issued a proposal on Aug. 20 outlining the acceptable investments for Trump Accounts. The proposal covers fees, foreign investments, ESG funds, and other investment management issues. The proposal, if finalized, would clarify the requirements for investments used in Trump Accounts under Internal Revenue Code Section 530A. The comment period will remain open for 60 days.” MORE >>
Source: American Retirement Association
Retirement Plans
1 item“A fiduciary may select an insurance company partly because it has strong financial ratings—perhaps AA or better. But ratings change. If that insurer later falls below the credit standard that justified its selection, the plan should have a contractual right to transfer the guarantee or assets to another financially strong insurer without a surrender charge, market-value adjustment or other participant penalty. As I argued in my earlier article, if the insurer’s credit quality was important enough to justify buying the annuity, deterioration in that credit quality should give the fiduciary a meaningful ability to act. There is precedent for this approach. Stable-value products have long used ” MORE >>
Source: The Commonsense 401(k) Project
Litigation
3 items“The court awarded Plaintiff $201,195.00 in attorneys’ fees and $467.00 in costs, well short of the roughly $350,000 in fees her counsel ultimately requested. The decision offers a detailed look at two recurring questions in ERISA litigation: the narrow grounds for altering a judgment after entry, and the evidence a prevailing party must produce to recover fees at ERISA-specialist rates. ... The court held that Plaintiff used Rule 59(e) to relitigate matters the court had already decided or to raise arguments she could have presented before judgment.” MORE >>
Source: Roberts Disability Law
“A federal judge has granted a motion to dismiss a stable value suit — because the plaintiffs “have failed to state any of their claims.” And not for the first time, apparently.” MORE >>
Source: American Retirement Association
“The agreement, if approved, will compensate about 189 former NCR Corp. executives who alleged that the software company failed to honor its promise to provide lifetime annuity payments to retired executives. The settlement consists of about $43.52 million in damages and about $4.23 million in attorney’s fees. The class affected by the settlement includes all former participants, as well as their spouses and beneficiaries, in certain NCR retirement plans who received or would have received lump-sum payments after the plans’ termination.” MORE >>
Source: Hall Benefits Law
General Benefits
2 items“CFA Institute’s new continuation-fund report exposes a bigger pension problem: GP-controlled transactions can potentially manufacture valuations, move performance between funds, crystallize carry and turn smoothed private-market marks into something that looks like independent price discovery.” MORE >>
Source: The Commonsense 401(k) Project
“A newer generation of digital recordkeepers, along with the company where I work, has begun building AI into the plan experience, including real-time compliance monitoring for tests such as annual ADP/ACP testing. The most interesting part of these tools is not the interface. It is the potential for a fundamental, conceptual shift from annual, retrospective compliance work toward continuous, in-year monitoring. Consider what that means in practice.” MORE >>
Source: American Retirement Association