Add two more lawsuits to the pile facing UnitedHealth Group.
America’s largest insurer is facing two purported class-action suits from former employees alleging the company misused their 401(k) contributions.
As the suit describes it, UHG, which took in $400 billion in revenue last year, has a fairly standard corporate 401(k) plan, contributing up to 4.5% of employees’ pay under certain conditions. However, employees forfeit the money UHG contributed to their plan if they leave before completing two years with the company.
Between 2019 and 2023, UHG used $19 million in forfeited funds to reduce its own matching contributions, instead of using it to reduce administrative fees for the 401(k) accounts. That was a breach of UHG’s fiduciary duty to plan participants, the plaintiff argues.
A “prudent fiduciary in like circumstances would have defrayed expenses to the Plan’s participants rather than defray costs to the employer,” says the lawsuit, claiming UHG caused “participants to incur millions in expenses that could otherwise have been covered in whole or in part by forfeited funds.” In not acting in pan participants’ best interests, UHG violated the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), the suit claims. It is seeking class-action status.
UHG’s 401(k) plan has $22 billion in assets and counts 267,000 participants, according to Department of Labor documents.
“Our 401(k) plan fiduciaries have always acted in accordance with ERISA and in the best interests of plan participants, and we strongly deny any allegations to the contrary,” a company spokesperson said in a statement. “We will move to dismiss at the earliest opportunity.”
Correction, June 2, 2025: A previous version of this story misstated the amount of UHG’s employee match stated in the lawsuit.
