ALERT / JULY 29, 2026

DOL proposes updated e-disclosure rule for ERISA group health plans

9 MIN READ

On July 23, 2026, the DOL’s Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) published a proposed rule on Electronic Disclosure by Group Health Plans Under ERISA (opens a new window), which seeks to create a new, additional safe harbor for group health plan administrators to use electronic media, such as email or a web portal, to furnish required documents and information to participants and beneficiaries.

The new safe harbor would allow ERISA-covered group health plans to furnish many required notices and disclosures electronically, using a notice-and-access approach like the model now available for retirement plans. If finalized, the rule would give plan administrators an additional, optional pathway for electronic delivery while preserving participants’ rights to request paper copies or opt out of electronic delivery entirely.

Comments on the proposed rule are due Sept. 21, 2026. If finalized this year, the new safe harbor would become available for plans to use beginning Jan. 1, 2027.

Executive Summary

The proposed rule would add a new electronic delivery safe harbor for ERISA-covered group health plans, separate from the DOL’s existing 2002 safe harbor. It does not apply to other welfare plans such as life and disability.
The new safe harbor would generally allow plans to post covered disclosures online and send participants a notice of internet availability, rather than mailing paper copies by default.
Participants and beneficiaries who prefer paper would retain the right to request paper copies and to opt out of electronic delivery entirely.
The rule is not yet final. Employers should monitor the rulemaking, consider whether to submit comments, and begin evaluating administrative readiness.

LOCKTON COMMENT: The proposal is welcome news for employers that seek streamlined administration and have struggled with DOL’s 2002 electronic disclosure safe harbor for non-office or frontline workforces that do not use a work computer on a daily basis. But this rule is not yet effective, and plan sponsors should continue following existing disclosure rules until the proposal is finalized. Plan sponsors may wish to begin assessing whether their enrollment platforms, portals, vendors and participant communication processes could support the new safe harbor if adopted or whether they wish to continue under the old rules.

What the proposal would change

For more than two decades, ERISA group health plans have generally relied on the DOL’s 2002 electronic disclosure safe harbor, which permits electronic delivery primarily for employees who are “wired at work” (i.e., use a work computer as an integral part of their daily duties) or for individuals who affirmatively consent to electronic delivery. That framework has proven difficult to apply and administer for plan sponsors whose workforce does not regularly use an employer-provided email address, including many retail, manufacturing, healthcare, hospitality and field-based employees. Not to mention, the rule is 24 years old! This new safe harbor, if finalized as written, would extend to group health plans the “notice-and-access” model of electronic disclosure EBSA adopted for retirement plans in 2020.

Rather than obtaining participant consent, the new safe harbor would allow plan administrators to post covered disclosures such as the summary plan description and annual notices on a website or similar electronic platform, and provide a single notice informing participants that the documents are available electronically and where to find them. Before a plan sponsor can use the new safe harbor method, they would need to provide an initial paper notice explaining the new disclosure process and giving participants a right to opt out.

LOCKTON COMMENT: It’s important to note that EBSA only offers the new safe harbor to group health plans and does not extend the same e-disclosure option to other welfare benefits such as life and disability. This means a plan sponsor who uses a wrap summary plan description (SPD) (i.e., summarizing a plan’s multiple health and welfare options in a single document) would need to supply the SPD through the older methods to remain compliant, which would render the new option fairly useless in streamlining disclosure practices. We hope EBSA provides clarification on this.

The Notice of Internet Availability (NOIA) and document posting requirements

The Notice of Internet Availability (NOIA) would be a new required annual notice for plan sponsors that wish to take advantage of this e-disclosure safe harbor. The NOIA must explain in a manner understandable by an average plan participant which document(s) are available online, the specific website address or hyperlink where the documents can be found, and the participant’s right to request a free paper copy or opt out of e-disclosure. The hyperlink or web address could either navigate directly to the document(s) or to a login page where a prominent link is displayed. The NOIA would also need to provide a phone number for the plan administrator or its designee such as a TPA or insurance company.

The posted documents must be in a widely available format such as a PDF that allows for reading online or producing a printed version, and can be permanently retained in electronic format. The content of the covered document also would be required to be searchable electronically by numbers, letters, or words. The administrator must take measures reasonably calculated to ensure that the website protects the confidentiality of personal information relating to any covered individual. Access to the website does not need to be publicly available but a group health plan administrator should ensure it is accessible to covered individuals outside of the workplace to ensure compliance with the reasonable access standard. Documents made available under this safe harbor must remain available for at least one year but may be replaced by updated versions. All existing disclosure deadlines would still apply to e-disclosure.

LOCKTON COMMENT: The proposal lays out some specific format and content requirements for the NOIA so presumably the EBSA will provide a model template for this purpose although the rule allows for some flexibility on design elements such as including logos, branding, and other non-misleading design elements.

One NOIA to rule them all

The Department’s rule requires a NOIA when a document is made electronically available under this safe harbor. Luckily, the rules propose to allow a plan administrator to furnish a single, annual combined NOIA that incorporates all electronically furnished documents available at open enrollment. Any covered document that is included in the NOIA would need to be explicitly identified and described to convey to participants and beneficiaries which documents are being electronically posted.

The NOIA delivery system

The NOIA must be sent electronically to covered individuals through an email address or smartphone number the plan sponsor furnishes or an individual provides. Covered individuals include plan participants and their beneficiaries such as dependent children. If the dependent child is 18 years or older, the plan must allow them to request separate notification and provide their own contact address for NOIA delivery. Best practice would also include collecting a secondary non-work address that enables the employee to continue receiving important plan information after employment termination (although this could result in additional administrative complications, such as deciding how and when to cease such communication). The system must also alert the plan administrator when an address becomes inoperable and the NOIA is undeliverable at the address of record. In the event all provided electronic delivery addresses return as undeliverable and the plan sponsor is unable to obtain an operable address, they should treat the covered individual as if they requested a paper copy.

Key participant protections

Although the proposal would make electronic delivery easier for plans, it would not eliminate participants’ rights to request a paper copy or privacy and confidentiality protections. Participants and beneficiaries who prefer paper would be able to request paper copies of covered disclosures free of charge. They must also have the right to opt out of electronic delivery entirely.

What employers should do now

Because the rule is only proposed, employers do not need to change their disclosure practices immediately. However, plan sponsors should consider inventorying required ERISA group health plan disclosures, identifying which vendors currently control participant email addresses, text messaging, portals or document repositories, and review whether existing systems can track opt-outs, paper-copy requests, bounced notices and document availability. Employers may also want to evaluate whether the DOL’s proposal would create operational efficiencies for annual notices, summary plan descriptions, summaries of material modifications, claims and appeals communications, and other recurring plan communications. For many employers, particularly those with large populations of frontline, retail, manufacturing, healthcare, hospitality, distribution, or field-based employees, the existing 2002 framework limited the practical use of electronic disclosure.

LOCKTON COMMENT: Employers should be cautious about assuming that this new proposed rule would make electronic delivery automatic or effortless. The proposed safe harbor would likely require coordinated administration among employers, insurers, TPAs, COBRA administrators and enrollment vendors. Plan sponsors should confirm who will host documents, send the required NOIA, maintain records, respond to paper-copy requests, monitor email bounce backs, and participant opt-outs before implementing the safe harbor when finalized.

The bottom line

When finalized, the proposal would significantly modernize ERISA disclosure delivery for group health plans and reduce printing and mailing burdens, especially for employers with large frontline, retail, manufacturing, healthcare, hospitality, distribution or field-based workforces that have struggled to use the 2002 electronic disclosure framework. It could also make it easier to distribute SPDs, SMMs, SARs, and certain other ERISA health plan disclosures.

For now, employers should view the proposal as an opportunity to prepare for possible implementation by monitoring the rulemaking, considering whether to comment by the deadline, and aligning internal and vendor processes so they can move quickly if the DOL finalizes the safe harbor. Of course, if a plan sponsor prefers its current disclosure method to the new avenue, it can keep it without changes.