The Employee Benefit Security Administration (EBSA) has recovered $1.4 billion for retirement, health, and welfare benefits plans, participants, and beneficiaries in fiscal year 2025, reported the Department of Labor (DOL) on Jan. 30.
“EBSA’s significant fiscal year 2025 results obtained for participants and beneficiaries demonstrate our commitment to ensure access to secure retirement, health, and other work-related benefits for American workers and their families,” said Assistant Secretary for EBSA Daniel Aronowitz.
Well over half of the recoveries, at $714.4 million, were from the agency’s enforcement actions, derived from 556 civil investigations out of the 878 it closed. EBSA said these recoveries were mainly from terminated vested participants. Over 8,000 terminated vested participants in defined benefit (DB) pension plans collected $512.5 million in recuperations.
The agency also produced non-monetary results, including removing 15 fiduciaries, barring 24 individuals from serving as fiduciaries, appointing 18 fiduciaries, improving missing participant procedures for 49 plans, and implementing 61 global corrections across multiple ERISA-covered health plans.
Further, in fiscal year 2025, EBSA’s criminal investigations resulted in 62 indictments and initial charging events, along with 45 convictions that included plan officials, corporations, corporate officers, and service providers who were charged for offenses related to employee benefit plans. The agency closed 253 criminal investigations throughout the year.
Close to half—at $468.7 million of recuperations—came from 222,246 informal complaint resolutions. According to EBSA, “these inquiries sometimes lead to enforcement actions if there are repeated complaints about a particular plan, employer, or service provider, or if there is information indicating significant ERISA violations.” In fiscal year 2025, EBSA opened 291 investigations from Benefits Advisor referrals.
$117.3 million arose from 1,752 applications to the Abandoned Plan Program, $39.1 million from the Voluntary Fiduciary Correction Program, and $67 million from No Surprise Act (NSA) inquiries. The NSA prohibits out-of-network cost-sharing for many emergency and several non-emergency services. In FY 2025, EBSA Benefits Advisors received over 27,000 NSA complaints.
The $1.4 billion in recoveries is nearly $20 billion more compared to the $1.384 billion recorded in FY 2024, but still lower than the $1.435 recovered in FY 2023.
The agency also included case studies that followed real-life plan participants and select scenarios. One involved a 401(k)-retirement plan with over 1,500 participants that had been frozen after the company shut down. According to EBSA, one participant was concerned about the organization’s financial health and asked the agency for help in obtaining a distribution.
EBSA explained what the law required and provided guidance on terminating the plan. As a result, $33.6 million has since been distributed to participants.
Another scenario included an investigation that followed an ERISA claims administrator. The agency discovered “multiple failures involving out-of-network emergency services benefit determinations and claims as well as mental health parity violations.” The failures had impacted close to 10,800 participants and more than 2,400 providers.
As a result of the investigation, EBSA said the claims administrator established a trust fund to pay back participants and providers and has so far paid over $11 million.
EBSA currently oversees approximately 2.8 million health plans, 837,000 private pension plans, and 521,000 other welfare benefit plans under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA). These plans cover 155 million workers, retirees, and dependents.