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WTW Pension 100: Year-End 2021 Disclosures

"The financial health of the nation's largest corporate defined benefit pension plans improved significantly in 2021 as strong investment returns and rising interest rates helped to drive aggregate funded status to its best level since before the 2008 financial crisis. The aggregate funded status of defined benefit plans in the WTW Pension 100, managed to rise, from 87.9% in 2020 to 95.8% in 2021."

Antitrust Issues Scuttled Aon-WTW Combo; What Comes Next?

"Regulators cited the elimination of competition in filing a civil lawsuit to halt the union of Aon and Willis Towers Watson. As significant consolidation occurs across the financial services industry, some wonder whether similar issues could arise again."

Year-End 2016 Funding Status, Discount Rates, Asset Allocations and Contributions for WTW 100 Plans

"For the third year running, average funded status for the [Willis Towers Watson] Pension 100 was 82.4%. Most of these companies contributed more to their pensions in 2016 than in 2015. Two developments will be key in 2017: whether interest rates rise as they did toward year-end 2016, and whether tax reform will occur."

Funded Status of Largest Plans Shows Strong Improvement in 2025

"WTW examined pension plan data for 349 Fortune 1000 companies that sponsor U.S. DB pension plans and have a December fiscal year-end date. The aggregate pension funded status of these plans at the end of 2025 is estimated to be 104%, an increase from 101% at the end of 2024. Pension obligations declined slightly from $1.16 trillion at the end of 2024 to an estimated $1.11 trillion at the end of 2025."

TrumpRx and GLP-1s: Impacts on Drug Pricing and Employer Strategy

"The move toward DTC access should not be viewed as a short-term marketing trend, but rather a strategic reconfiguration of the pharmaceutical value chain ... DTC models let manufacturers control pricing, data ownership and delivery. This changes the traditional role of [PBMs] as intermediaries. The launch of TrumpRx further underscores growing policy support for bypassing PBMs entirely."

Preparing for the Roth Catch-Up Contribution Mandate, Part 5

"Since the rules go into effect on January 1, 2026, sponsors should begin communicating as soon as possible (if they have not started already) and consider using a phased and multi-channel approach tailored to their particular workforce."

Preparing for the Roth Catch-Up Contribution Mandate, Part 4: To Deem or Not to Deem

"The deemed Roth catch-up election offers important advantages over an affirmative election approach.... However, there may be challenges to implementing the deemed Roth catch-up election. Monitoring the IRC section 402(g) limit on a pre-tax only basis for Roth catch-up participants is beneficial in that the effective opportunity may be easier to administer. However, most payroll systems only track the IRC section 402(g) limit on a combined pre-tax and Roth basis. So separately tracking the amount of pre-tax contributions may not be available or may only be feasible after making significant payroll programming changes."

Preparing for the Roth Catch-Up Contribution Mandate, Part 3

"This article ... explores correction methods available when catch-up contributions for a participant subject to the Roth catch-up contribution mandate are mistakenly made on a pre-tax basis instead of a Roth basis.... A plan is permitted to correct this type of error by distributing the pre-tax elective deferrals that are not catch-up contributions. The final regulations also provide two additional correction methods that allow pre-tax elective deferrals that exceed an applicable limit to be treated as a Roth contribution. "

Double-Digit Healthcare Cost Increases Projected to Persist

"The survey of health insurers found that the average cost of medical health benefits will increase by 10.3% globally next year. This follows rises of 10% in 2025 and 9.5% in 2024.... [O]ver half (55%) of insurers that expect higher trends expect these elevated levels to persist for more than three years, driven by high medical costs, regional pressures on pharmacy and outpatient services and global structural factors."

Independent MHPAEA Reviews Can Help Achieve True Parity

"[H]aving a vendor partner complete the analysis is somewhat like asking a fox to guard the henhouse. A third-party review gives an unbiased, objective perspective to provide accurate evaluations of a carrier's adherence to regulations and standards. This independence improves credibility with stakeholders, identifying potential risks by providing a more comprehensive review of industry practices, and is often necessary for demonstrating compliance to external parties like the [DOL] or plaintiff's attorneys."