Advocacy in action blog

The Department of Labor has announced that it will not enforce a 2024 rule for determining employee or independent contractor classification under the Fair Labor Standards Act. That rule, put in place by the Biden Administration, is now under review by the Department and also faces several federal lawsuits challenging its validity. NAIFA opposed the 2024 rule.

The Wall Street Journal and Washington Post recently published articles casting a negative light on the lawsuit brought by NAIFA, ACLI, and others to stop the Department of Labor’s misguided fiduciary-only rule. These articles mischaracterize what we hope to achieve and largely ignore the arguments laid out in our court filings.

NAIFA along with the American Council of Life Insurers and other advocacy partners recently notched a major win in our lawsuit opposing the Department of Labor’s fiduciary-only rule. As we shared with you last week, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas granted a stay in the lawsuit that prevents the DOL rule from going into effect September 23.

The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas has granted a request by NAIFA, ACLI, several NAIFA chapters, and other advocacy partners to stay the Department of Labor's fiduciary-only rule, stating that our case is "virtually certain to succeed on the merits." The action follows a similar stay issued Thursday by a different federal court in a similar case.

On July 25, 2024, a federal court in the Eastern District of Texas issued a stay barring the enforcement of the DOL fiduciary-only rule (and amendments to PTE 84-24) while the case in FACC v. DOL is pending. An appeal of the stay to the 5th Circuit is likely.  

Meanwhile, NAIFA’s challenge to the fiduciary-only rule, brought with ACLI and other industry groups, is under review in the Northern District of Texas, where we seek a preliminary injunction and stay against enforcement of the fiduciary-only rule and amendments to PTE 84-24 and 2020-02.

Washington, D.C.—The American Council of Life Insurers (ACLI), National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors (NAIFA), Finseca, Insured Retirement Institute (IRI) and National Association for Fixed Annuities (NAFA) issued the following statement on legislation advanced today by the U.S. House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, HHS, Education, and Related Agencies that would block funding for the Labor Department’s fiduciary-only regulation:

Nine insurance trade associations filed a lawsuit today against the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) to overturn a regulation limiting consumers' choice of financial professional and their access to retirement products that deliver protected lifetime income.

The American Council of Life Insurers (ACLI), National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors (NAIFA), NAIFA-Texas, NAIFA-Dallas, NAIFA-Fort Worth, NAIFA-POET, Finseca, Insured Retirement Institute (IRI), and National Association for Fixed Annuities (NAFA) issued the following comments on their challenge to the DOL's harmful intervention in the retirement savings marketplace and its one-size-fits-all fiduciary standard obligation on effectively every financial professional who sells retirement products:

NAIFA supports the newly introduced Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution disapproving the DOL’s final fiduciary-only rule that will negatively impact and impose new costs on middle- and low-income savers, as well as financial services professionals. CEO Kevin Mayeux, CAE, sent letters personally thanking Representative Rick Allen and Senators Roger Marshall, Joe Manchin, Ted Budd, and Bill Cassidy for introducing the resolution in the House and Senate, respectively. ACLI, NAIFA, Finseca, IRI and NAFA also issued a joint release supporting the CRA review.

An ongoing survey of NAIFA members will provide updated data to help NAIFA and our industry partners in future actions on the Department of Labor’s final fiduciary-only rule. The results will help us educate policymakers – and potentially the courts – on how the proposal will impact consumers and your business.

A NAIFA Advocacy Webinar
May 2 | 2 pm eastern

The U.S. Department of Labor‘s final fiduciary-only rule will force the vast majority of financial professionals offering retirement planning services and products into a fee-for-service model, unless Congress or the courts intervene. It will deprive many consumers of the valuable option of working with professionals operating under alternative models, including those with commission-based compensation, that may better meet their needs.