Consumer Appeal Rights Enforcement Act

This bill changes federal law on employee benefit plans, such as job-based health and retirement plans, to add civil penalties for breaking rules on claims, appeals, and external reviews. The Secretary of Labor could fine people or companies, other than the plan itself, that cause a plan to lack a proper claims or external review process, or that cause a plan to fail an individual participant, such as by missing deadlines or leaving out required notices. Fines could reach $1,000 per participant per plan year for plan-wide failures or $1,000 per day for individual failures, and could be tripled if not fixed within set time periods. Courts could also impose these penalties in lawsuits, but a person could not be penalized by both a court and the Secretary for the same violation. The bill also repeals an existing limit in the law on the Secretary's enforcement authority, and its changes take effect 90 days after it becomes law.

Full text and official record on Congress.gov

Sponsors

• Summer L. Lee Democrat sponsor
• 2 cosponsors