Pension Rights Center Issues Comments on Department of Labor’s Proposed Regulations on Delivering Important Disclosures on Paper to Workers and Retirees

Pension Rights Center Issues Comments on Department of Labor’s Proposed Regulations on Delivering Important Disclosures on Paper to Workers and Retirees

WASHINGTON, D.C., May 1, 2026—Earlier this week, the Pension Rights Center (PRC) submitted comments to the Department of Labor (DOL) to strengthen the  Agency’s proposed regulations to implement specific provisions of the SECURE Act 2.0, which require private-sector retirement plans to provide workers and retirees  with periodic paper individualized pension benefit statements. Individual Benefit Statements are among the most important disclosures required by the federal private pension law ERISA, providing workers and retirees with personalized information about the benefits they earned and  their rights under their retirement plans.

PRC pointed out that “for the first 30 years of ERISA, virtually all participants received paper copies of mandated ERISA disclosures at work or through the mail.” But because of workplace and technological changes, the rules were changed. In 2002, the DOL created a “safe harbor” that permitted those employees who are “wired at work” to be defaulted into electronic delivery. Then, in 2020, the DOL created a second safe harbor that created an alternative “notice and access” disclosure regime – which the Pension Rights Center and other consumer-oriented groups have been critical of – where millions more people are now defaulted into electronic delivery – as long as they have access to an e-mail or smart phone. The 2020 safe harbor permits a retirement plan to simply provide an e-mail notice that disclosures are available – and then the individual has to hunt down the actual disclosure on a website.

“One of the fundamental rights granted under the federal private pension law ERISA is for workers, retirees and spouses to get essential information – such as benefit statements, modifications to investment options, summaries of plan terms and rights – and other pertinent information,” said Karen Friedman, the Executive Director of the PRC. “These disclosures can be critical to indivduals’  ability to prove their right to an earned benefit when this might be disputed by the plan.”

The DOL’s proposed regulations make changes to both the 2002 and 2020 safe harbors. PRC made numerous recommendations to strengthen the proposed rule to provide greater consumer protections:

• Ensure that all retirement plans provide an initial notice – in paper – that informs all new employees that they have the right to elect that all of their disclosures, not just the benefits statement, be on paper.
• Require that all plans include on the initial notice contact information and a telephone number for the plan sponsor to help people opt into paper disclosure.
• Develop a model notice to help plan sponsors understand their responsibilities under the SECURE 2.0 requirement on furnishing paper copies of individual benefit statements
• Ensure that all participants and beneficiaries – whether they are getting their statements on paper or electronically – are allowed to access documents on the plan website (some plans prohibit those who choose paper delivery to gain access to their electronic documents on a plan’s website).
• Complete and release a study, also mandated by SECURE 2.0, that would study the “effectiveness” of current electronic delivery regimes and report on the “rate at which participants and beneficiaries are receiving, accessing, understanding and retaining disclosures.”
• Once the study is completed and sent to Congress, rethink the safe harbors and to consider combining them into a single set of rules that ensure that the greatest number of participants receive, review and retain their disclosures

The PRC is a non-partisan non-profit consumer rights organization founded in 1976 with the mission of protecting and promoting the retirement security of workers, retirees and their families. The PRC also provides direct services to more than 2,000 individuals annually, as well as serving as the resource center for six regional pension counseling and information projects covering 31 states that provide free legal assistance and advice to individuals with retirement benefit problems.

Media Contact:

Kate Pixley

(202) 296-3778

kpixley@pensionrights.org

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