By: HUB’s EB Compliance Team
The Employee Benefits Security Administration (“EBSA”) division of the Department of Labor (“DOL”) recently announced changes to their enforcement priorities for 2026. These changes represent the most significant shift in EBSA's enforcement priorities in recent years.
EBSA is the federal agency responsible for overseeing employer-sponsored retirement and health and welfare benefit plans. The agency protects more than 156 million workers, retirees and their families who participate in approximately 2.6 million health plans and 801,000 retirement plans holding about $13.8 trillion in assets.
New Priority Areas
EBSA identified six key areas where investigators will now focus their enforcement efforts:
- Cybersecurity
With benefit plans increasingly relying on digital systems and storing sensitive participant data electronically, cybersecurity has become a critical concern. EBSA will investigate whether plans are adequately protecting participant information and plan assets from cyber threats. This focus highlights the importance of earlier DOL guidance on cybersecurity.
- Mental Health and Substance Use Disorder Benefits
EBSA will examine whether health plans are creating improper barriers that prevent participants from accessing mental health and substance use disorder treatment. This focus ensures that mental health benefits receive equal treatment compared to medical and surgical benefits.
- Protecting Benefit Distributions
Investigators will focus on ensuring that plan participants receive the benefits they're entitled to when taking distributions from retirement plans or receiving other benefit payments. This includes examining whether distributions are processed correctly and participants receive accurate information.
- Retirement Asset Management
EBSA will investigate how retirement plan fiduciaries manage plan assets, including investment selection, fee reasonableness and whether fiduciaries are acting in participants' best interests when making investment decisions.
- Surprise Billing
The agency will examine compliance with federal surprise billing protections (the No Surprises Act) that prevent participants from receiving unexpected medical bills in certain emergency and non-emergency situations.
- Criminal Abuse of Contributory Benefit Plans
EBSA will pursue cases where employers or plan officials criminally misuse plan contributions, such as failing to deposit employee contributions into benefit plans or stealing plan assets.
Continuing Enforcement Focus
Although not listed as a formal national project, EBSA emphasized its continued commitment to identifying abusive Multiple Employer Welfare Arrangements (“MEWAs”). MEWAs are arrangements where multiple employers, who do not have the required common ownership to be considered a control group, band together to provide health benefits. EBSA will work to prevent fraudulent MEWA operators from opening new arrangements after being shut down in other states.
Bottom Line
EBSA's enforcement priority shift reflects the agency's assessment of where American workers face the greatest risks to their retirement security and healthcare benefits. By focusing resources on cybersecurity threats, mental health access barriers and criminal misconduct, while pulling back from areas with new participant protections, EBSA aims to deliver better outcomes for those covered by employer-sponsored benefit plans.
Plan sponsors should review their compliance practices in these priority areas and ensure they have robust procedures to protect participants and meet their fiduciary obligations. This also presents an opportunity for employers to review their cybersecurity and fiduciary liability coverages.
If you have any questions, please contact your HUB Advisor. View more compliance articles in our Compliance Directory.
NOTICE OF DISCLAIMER
Neither Hub International Limited nor any of its affiliated companies is a law or accounting firm, and therefore they cannot provide legal or tax advice. The information herein is provided for general information only and is not intended to constitute legal or tax advice as to an organization’s or individual's specific circumstances. It is based on HUB International's understanding of the law as it exists on the date of this publication. Subsequent developments may result in this information becoming outdated or incorrect, and HUB International does not have an obligation to update this information. You should consult an attorney, accountant or other legal or tax professional regarding the application of the general information provided here to your organization’s specific situation in light of your or your organization’s particular needs.