Published
August 3, 2026
This settlement resolves claims that Providence Health & Services used forfeited 401(k) money to reduce its own contributions instead of paying the plan's administrative expenses. If you had money in the Providence Health & Services 401(k) Savings Plan or the Swedish Health Services 401(k) Plan at any point between January 1, 2018 and June 4, 2026, there is no claim form to file — your share is deposited into your plan account for you.
Current Status
There is no claim form in this settlement. If you were a participant in or beneficiary of the Providence Health & Services 401(k) Savings Plan or the Swedish Health Services 401(k) Plan at any time from January 1, 2018 through June 4, 2026, your share is calculated for you and deposited into your plan account. The Court granted preliminary approval on June 4, 2026 and conditionally certified the settlement class, and the fairness hearing is set for October 20, 2026 at 10:30 a.m. Pacific before Judge Jamal N. Whitehead in Seattle. As of August 3, 2026, no final approval order had been entered and no payment date had been announced. You cannot exclude yourself — the class was certified under a rule that does not allow opt-outs — but you can object in writing, postmarked no later than October 6, 2026.
Status
Pending Final Approval
Fairness hearing October 20, 2026 · preliminary approval granted June 4, 2026
Object By
October 6, 2026
Postmark deadline · there is no opt-out right and no exclusion deadline
Estimated Payout
About $106 per person
Class Counsel's estimate · an equal per-capita share, not balance-weighted
Proof Required
Automatic Payment
No claim form to file — your share is deposited into your plan account
What Changed Recently?
The parties signed the Settlement Agreement and filed it with the Western District of Washington on February 13, 2026. On June 4, 2026, Judge Jamal N. Whitehead granted preliminary approval, conditionally certified the settlement class under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(b)(1), appointed Analytics Consulting LLC as Settlement Administrator, and scheduled the fairness hearing for October 20, 2026. The order required notice to go out within 45 calendar days, which put the email and postcard mailing on or before roughly July 20, 2026, and the official settlement website is now live.One date in the settlement moved as a result. The class period runs to the date the preliminary approval order was entered, so June 4, 2026 is now the closing date of the class — anyone who joined the plan up to that day is included.
The underlying case is Halter v. Providence Health & Services, et al., Case No. 2:25-cv-00210-JNW. It was filed on October 31, 2024 in the District of Oregon, and moved to Washington after the Court granted an unopposed transfer motion on January 29, 2025. An amended complaint followed on February 20, 2025. Providence answered and then moved for judgment on the pleadings; before that motion was decided, the parties ran targeted discovery and mediated with Robert A. Meyer of JAMS, which produced this agreement.
Providence denies all of the claims. The company says it is not liable to the named plaintiff, the class, or the plan, denies that anyone suffered harm it should answer for, and maintains that the plan was managed and administered in compliance with ERISA and in participants' best interests throughout. Nothing in the settlement is an admission of fault, and no court has ruled on the merits of the allegations.
What the Case Alleged
When an employee leaves before becoming fully vested, the unvested part of the employer's matching contributions is forfeited and swept into a plan forfeiture account. Federal law allows a plan to put that money to more than one use, and the fight in these cases is over which use the plan document requires.The amended complaint alleged that the Providence plan document left no discretion: forfeited amounts were to be applied first to pay plan expenses not paid by Providence, then to restore accounts, and only then to offset employer contributions. According to the complaint, the fiduciaries reversed that order — using forfeitures to offset Providence's own contribution obligation while participants kept paying administrative fees deducted from their individual accounts. The complaint pleaded five counts, including breach of the duty to follow plan documents, breach of loyalty, breach of prudence, and prohibited transactions.
The complaint put figures on it, year by year. These are allegations that Providence disputes and that no court has adjudicated:
• 2018 — a minimum of $4,149,035 in forfeited assets available; participants allegedly paid at least $433,159 in plan expenses from their accounts.
• 2019 — $5,252,200 available; at least $664,966 charged to participant accounts.
• 2020 — $5,590,362 available; at least $3,549,572 charged to participant accounts.
• 2021 — $10,344,820 available; at least $3,538,220 charged to participant accounts.
• 2022 — $63,604,261 available; at least $5,863,661 charged to participant accounts.
• 2023 — $18,997,327 available; at least $5,692,035 charged to participant accounts.
Forfeiture cases like this one have not fared uniformly in the courts — a number of similar suits against other employers have been dismissed — which is part of why a resolution of this size drew attention when it was announced. Our explainer on 401(k) ERISA class actions walks through the recurring fee and forfeiture theories in more detail.
Who Qualifies?
The settlement class is every participant or beneficiary of the plan, including any alternate payee entitled to a benefit under a Qualified Domestic Relations Order, from January 1, 2018 through June 4, 2026. That is the entire test. You do not need to still work for Providence, you do not need any particular balance today, and you do not need to have been affected by any specific fee."The plan" is broader than the name on the settlement website suggests. The court-authorized notice defines it to cover both the Providence Health & Services 401(k) Savings Plan and the Swedish Health Services 401(k) Plan, so Swedish participants are inside this class even though the case caption names only Providence.
Court filings and reporting on the deal put the class at roughly 202,000 people. That is consistent with the settlement's own math: Class Counsel estimate about $106 per class member from an unallocated pool of $21,424,532.72 divided equally.
There is no exclusion right. The Court certified the class under Rule 23(b)(1), which does not permit class members to opt out. If the settlement is approved, every class member is bound by the release and by the judgment.
How Much Can You Get?
The Gross Settlement Amount is valued at approximately $42,724,532, and it is assembled from three separate pieces rather than a single cash fund.The first piece is the money already sitting inside the plan. Providence will allocate $21,424,532.72 — the combined balance of the plan's Forfeiture Account and Special Unallocated Account as of December 31, 2025 — to class members' plan accounts. This is the part that produces the roughly $106 estimate.
The second piece is three years of plan bills. For calendar years 2026, 2027 and 2028, Providence will pay the plan's recordkeeping expenses and plan administrative expenses, which the settlement values at about $5,100,000 a year, or $15,300,000 in total. Participants will not be charged those regular expenses for those three years. The settlement notes the figure may move with the number of participants or the actual cost of those services, so treat it as an estimate. Note also what it does not cover: Providence is not paying individual expenses or investment fees — loan fees, QDRO fees, investment management fees, transaction fees and the like still come out of the participant's own account.
The third piece is $6,000,000 in cash, paid into a settlement fund to cover any court-awarded attorneys' fees and costs, settlement administration expenses, and a service award. Whatever survives those deductions is allocated to class members. Class Counsel have said they intend to seek approximately $5,867,000 in fees — about 13.7% of the gross value — plus roughly $23,000 in out-of-pocket costs, with the two capped together at $5,890,000, and a service award of up to $5,000 for the class representative. The Court decides each of those amounts at the hearing, and anything requested but not awarded goes back to the class rather than to Providence.
The allocation method is unusual and worth understanding. Under the Plan of Allocation, the unallocated plan assets and the net cash fund are divided on a per-capita basis, meaning every class member receives the same dollar amount regardless of account size or how long they were in the plan. Most ERISA settlements weight shares by account balance; this one does not. Money deposited into a plan account is invested in the Vanguard Fiduciary Trust Company Target Retirement Income Trust, and the notice states no taxes are withheld when the payment is allocated to an individual plan account.
One figure circulating in trade coverage is roughly $182 per participant. That number combines the cash deposit with a per-head slice of the three years of plan expenses Providence is absorbing. Only the first part arrives as money in your account; the rest is a cost you avoid.
What Proof or Notice ID Is Required?
None. There is no claim form, no Class Member ID, no PIN, and nothing to upload or mail. This is why the facts strip reads Automatic Payment rather than Proof Required: Yes or No — there is no claim to prove up.The Settlement Administrator builds the class list from data supplied by Providence and the plan's recordkeeper, including names, last known mailing and email addresses, and Social Security numbers used to run address updates and locate class members who have moved. The administrator, not the class member, calculates every payment, and its determinations are final under the Court-approved Plan of Allocation.
Former participants are handled the same way, with one extra step Providence pays for. If you no longer have an active plan account, Providence will reactivate it at its own expense so your share can be deposited. From there the plan's ordinary rules apply: you may request a distribution, and accounts of $1,000.00 or less are subject to the plan's automatic distribution process, which pays by check from the recordkeeper less any withholding the recordkeeper is required to apply.
What Is the Deadline?
There is no claim deadline, because there is no claim. The dates that do apply are these:• Objections must be postmarked no later than October 6, 2026 and sent to the Court. The notice sets a postmark deadline and does not specify a timezone.
• A notice of intent to participate at the hearing, required if you want to speak, carries the same October 6, 2026 deadline and can be filed with your objection or separately.
• Class Counsel's petition for attorneys' fees, costs, administration expenses and the service award was due by September 1, 2026 under the preliminary approval order, and is posted to the settlement website within 24 hours of filing.
• The motion for final approval is due at least 50 calendar days before the hearing, which puts it on or before August 31, 2026.
• The fairness hearing is October 20, 2026 at 10:30 a.m. Pacific, in Courtroom 16A of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington in Seattle.
An objection must be in writing and include the case name and number, your name and address, a statement that you are a class member, the specific grounds for the objection with any supporting arguments and documents, and your signature. If a lawyer represents you, the objection has to be filed through the Court's CM/ECF system. An objection can be withdrawn in writing. There is no exclusion deadline because there is no exclusion right.
How Do You Take Action?
For nearly everyone in the class, there is nothing to do. If the Court approves the settlement, your share is deposited into your plan account without any action on your part.Two situations call for a step. If your mailing address has changed, update it so the administrator can reach you — the contact options are on the official settlement website, which also hosts the complaint, the Settlement Agreement and its exhibits, the long-form notice, the Plan of Allocation, the fee petition, and the Court's orders. And if you disagree with the settlement or the fee request, you can object by following the instructions in the notice and getting it postmarked by October 6, 2026.
A note on the website's lifespan: the agreement requires it to stay up for three years after the settlement takes effect, so download anything you want to keep. And because everything here happens inside your 401(k), treat any outside message asking for a fee or your banking details to "release" a Providence settlement payment as a red flag — legitimate benefits here move through your plan account, not through a third party.
What Happens Next?
Before the hearing, an Independent Fiduciary retained by Providence has to review the deal on the plan's behalf and decide whether to approve it and release the claims, applying the Department of Labor's Prohibited Transaction Class Exemption 2003-39. Its written determination is due no later than 35 calendar days before the hearing, or roughly September 15, 2026. This is a real condition, not a formality: if the Independent Fiduciary declines and the parties do not agree to modify the settlement, Providence can terminate it and the cash would be returned.At the October 20, 2026 hearing, the Court will decide whether the settlement is fair, reasonable and adequate, hear any objections, and rule on the fee petition and the service award. A hearing being held is not the same as approval being granted, and the Court can move the date — any change is posted to the settlement website rather than mailed out again.
If approval is granted, the agreement treats the order as final 35 calendar days after entry when no appeal is filed. Within 60 days after that, Providence allocates the unallocated plan assets and the net cash fund to class members' accounts. The notice says that if there are no appeals, distribution will likely occur within about six months of the final approval order, and warns that an appeal could add years. No payment date has been announced.
Money that goes unclaimed does not return to Providence. Under the Plan of Allocation, amounts left from the net cash fund after undeposited checks expire are paid cy pres to the Legal Foundation of Washington, and the agreement bars the fund from being used to reimburse Providence or offset its costs.
One thing this settlement does not resolve: legal and trade press reported in April 2026 that a separate group of former Providence employees filed their own ERISA suit alleging the retirement plans held an underperforming Invesco fund for about a decade, costing participants close to $70 million. That case is at the complaint stage, its allegations are unproven, and it is a different lawsuit from this one. Because the release here is written broadly, class members with a stake in those claims should read the release language before the objection deadline.
For comparison, two other ERISA settlements now paying out automatically are the Smith & Nephew 401(k) settlement and the Casey's tobacco surcharge settlement. We also covered this deal when it was first announced, in our report on the Providence Health 401(k) forfeiture settlement.
Sources and Verification
• Official settlement website: 2026 Providence 401(k) Settlement• Court-authorized Notice of Class Action Settlement, Halter v. Providence Health & Services, et al., Case No. 2:25-cv-00210-JNW (W.D. Wash.)
• Settlement Agreement and Exhibits A–G, filed February 13, 2026 (Dkt. 54-1), including the Plan of Allocation at Exhibit C
• Order Granting Plaintiff's Unopposed Motion for Preliminary Approval of Class Action Settlement, entered June 4, 2026 (Dkt. 62)
• Amended Complaint — Class Action, filed February 20, 2025 (Dkt. 25)
• PLANSPONSOR — Providence Health Settles Forfeiture Complaint for $42.7M, for the class-size and per-participant value figures
• Pensions & Investments — Providence settlement bucks trend of forfeiture lawsuit dismissals
Questions
Why does the official notice estimate about $106 when news reports said about $182?
The two figures measure different things. The $106 is Class Counsel's estimate of the cash amount deposited into each class member's plan account, which comes from dividing the $21,424,532.72 in unallocated plan assets equally among the class. The larger figure reported in the trade press adds a second, non-cash benefit: Providence agreeing to pay the plan's recordkeeping and administrative expenses for 2026, 2027 and 2028, valued in the settlement at about $15.3 million. That second piece is money class members do not pay rather than money they receive, and it is spread across roughly 202,000 people.
I left Providence years ago and closed my 401(k). Do I still get paid?
Yes, if you were a participant in or beneficiary of the plan at any time from January 1, 2018 through June 4, 2026. The settlement requires Providence to reactivate the plan accounts of former participants who are class members, at Providence's own expense, so the money can be deposited. Once your account is reactivated you may request a distribution under the plan's normal rules, and accounts of $1,000.00 or less are subject to the plan's automatic distribution process. Distributions of that kind are paid by check from the recordkeeper, less any withholding the recordkeeper is required to apply.
Can I opt out of the Providence 401(k) settlement and sue on my own?
No. The court certified the settlement class under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(b)(1), which does not permit class members to exclude themselves. There is no opt-out form and no exclusion deadline. A class member who disagrees with any part of the deal can object in writing instead, and the objection must be postmarked no later than October 6, 2026.
What claims does the Providence 401(k) settlement release?
The release is broad. Beyond the forfeiture claims actually pleaded, it covers claims connected to the plan's treatment or use of forfeitures during the class period, the fees and expenses charged to or paid by the plan or its participants, disclosures about the plan's forfeitures and fees, the compensation paid to the plan's service providers, the management and oversight of the plan and its fiduciaries, and alleged breaches of the duties of loyalty and prudence or prohibited transactions under ERISA. Class members who want to understand exactly what they are giving up should read paragraphs 1.42 and 1.43 of the Settlement Agreement, posted on the official settlement website.
What is a 401(k) forfeiture, and why was Providence sued over it?
When an employee leaves before becoming fully vested, the unvested portion of the employer's matching contributions is forfeited and moved into a plan forfeiture account. The amended complaint alleged that the Providence plan document required those forfeited amounts to be used first to pay plan expenses not paid by Providence, and that the plan's fiduciaries instead applied them to offset Providence's own employer contributions while participants continued to be charged administrative fees from their accounts. Providence denies all of it, denies that anyone suffered a loss, and maintains it administered the plan in compliance with ERISA. No court has ruled on the merits.
For more class actions keep scrolling below.
Settlement Amount
Approximately $42,724,532
$21,424,532.72 allocated to plan accounts · $15.3M in plan expenses paid by Providence for 2026–2028 · $6M cash fund
Case Title
Halter v. Providence Health & Services, et al.
Case Number
2:25-cv-00210-JNW
Court
U.S. District Court, Western District of Washington
Final Approval Hearing
October 20, 2026 at 10:30 AM Pacific
Before Judge Jamal N. Whitehead, Courtroom 16A, Seattle
Administrator
Analytics Consulting LLC
Official Website
2026 Providence 401(k) Settlement
