AI research on ERISA and employee benefits, built to analyze your questions the way a benefits professional does.
Our AI tools are powered by Claude, from Anthropic, informed by the ERISA Benefits Law Desk Reference, our custom-built knowledge base of the federal law of employee benefit plans, and guided by our built-in instructions on how to analyze ERISA questions the way experienced benefits professionals do it. Ask any of our AI tools your ERISA questions in your own words, attach your plan document if the answer depends on it, and get an answer that leads with the conclusion, precisely cites the applicable statutes, regulations and case law, considers the related questions you did not ask about (or perhaps even know about) and gives you practical guidance on what to do next.
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"An employee emailed HR six months ago asking to raise their deferral from 3% to 5%, but never changed it in the plan's portal or filed a form. What do we need to do now?"
We tell the AI what to think about, how to think about it, and the relevant facts of your plan or situation.
A general AI model knows a good deal about ERISA, but it answers from memory, it does not know which related or knock on issues a question raises, and it has not read your plan. Our AI Tools (the Desk Reference Research Assistant, and the SKILLs Suite for power users) are built to close each of those gaps.
What to think about: ERISA law, from the Desk Reference
The Desk Reference is the detailed knowledge base for both tools: twenty-six Parts on the federal law of employee benefit plans, each rule stated with the statute, regulation, case or agency guidance behind it, and each section dated to the law it states. The Research Assistant reads the sections that bear on your question before it answers, and then reads the official sources on the eCFR, the U.S. Code, the IRS and Department of Labor sites and the federal courts where they sharpen the answer or are more recent than the Desk Reference. The SKILLs Suite builds this same knowledge base into 26 SKILLs that power users can host in their own Claude subscription.
How to think about it: the way a benefits professional does
Our built-in guidance takes the AI through a question in the order an ERISA professional would: the kind of plan and employer, whether a controlled group is involved, which agencies have jurisdiction, and which facts are missing. It weighs statutes and regulations above informal agency guidance, flags the areas where the law is moving, and flags the related issues that your question reveals even though you didn’t ask about them, such as a qualification failure, a prohibited transaction or a deadline already running.
The facts: your plan documents, notices or correspondence
Attach a plan document, SPD or notice and the AI reads it as the facts of your plan, applies the law to it, and says which further fact would change the answer. Follow-up questions continue the same conversation, with the earlier questions and answers in front of it.
A short research memo, with the authority for every point.
While it works, the AI shows what it is reading. An answer usually takes a minute or two. Follow-up questions continue the conversation to refine the analysis.
What you get from both Tools
- The conclusion for your situation first, then the analysis, with each rule’s primary authority and (with the Research Assistant) a link to any source it read.
- Red flags and the points that need checking, and a list of the steps for what to do next.
- The Research Assistant also gives you a list of the Desk Reference sections it relied on, each with the date as of which it states the law, so that you can read further inside the Desk Reference itself.
What to know before you use either Tool
- The answers are general information about the law, written by an AI model and not reviewed by an attorney. They are not legal advice.
- In the Research Assistant, each conversation and its documents are deleted 90 days after the last message, or at once when you delete it yourself. Power users of the SKILLs Suite will set their own document and chat retention policies within their subscription to Claude.
- Remove Social Security numbers, health information and anything else that identifies a participant before you attach a document.
- What you put into the Research Assistant is not used to train any AI model. The Privacy Notice, section 13, explains how it is handled.
Which is best for me?
The Research Assistant is best for people or benefits teams that have a few questions per week.
The SKILLs Suite is better for power users or teams of three or more benefits professionals who may have more than one question per day on average.
The knowledge base is also there for Research Assistant subscribers to read.
Every subscriber to the Research Assistant can read the full Desk Reference: each chapter’s analysis, authorities and practice notes, the Subject Index, the Section Finder, the Tables of Cases, Statutes, Regulations and Agency Guidance, and Recent Changes in the Law. The first Part of every chapter, the Contents and Find Your Issue are free to everyone, with no account, so that you can judge the material the assistant works from before you subscribe. Purchasers of the SKILLs Suite get all of the Desk Reference content built directly into their SKILLs files.
Employer, Plan, and Fiduciary Foundations
Retirement Plans
Health and Welfare
Executive and Equity Compensation
Governmental, Church, and Tribal Plans
Corrections, Audits, and Disputes
Transactions and Workforce Change
The Research Assistant and the full Desk Reference: $120 a month, or $1,200 a year.
A subscription is for one person, at the email address of their account on this site, and includes a monthly research allowance for the assistant. It renews automatically until you cancel. You can cancel at any time from your account page, and your access then runs to the end of the period you have paid for. There are no partial refunds. Tax is added where it applies.
Research assistant and Desk Reference, monthly
The research assistant, with a monthly research allowance, and the full text of the Desk Reference, renewed each month.
per month
Research assistant and Desk Reference, annual
The same access, paid once a year, for the price of ten months.
per year
The knowledge base is written by ERISA attorney Erwin D. Kratz, with co-author Kristi L. Hill.
The Desk Reference is an original treatise of the primary ERISA and employee benefits legal authorities, written by practitioners for the way they actually work through benefits questions. It is published by ERISA Benefits Tech, LLC.
The Desk Reference and the research assistant provide general information about the law. They are not legal advice, and reading the Desk Reference, subscribing to it or using the Research Assistant or the SKILLs Suite does not create an attorney-client relationship with anyone. Before you act on a question about a particular plan, have it reviewed by ERISA counsel of your own choosing.
The ERISA SKILLs Suite: the same approach, in your own Claude account.
The Suite gives Claude the same ERISA knowledge and the same way of working through a question, installed as AI SKILLs in your organization’s own Claude account. There it works alongside your plan documents, your Projects and Claude’s memory, which stay in place from one conversation to the next. Power users that purchase the SKILLs get the ability to ask more questions, work with more documents, and gain the benefits of persistent memory. This allows power users to produce more detailed analysis of applicable data, and first drafts of documents and emails, as well as answers to their ERISA questions. The SKILLs Suite is sold as a perpetual license from $3,500.
Free training on using AI well in benefits work.
Most of the difference between a useful AI answer and an embarrassing one comes from how the question was asked, what context the tool was given, and whether anyone checked the result. The training teaches those habits with real benefits questions, and they apply to the research assistant, to the Suite and to any other AI tool. It is free and on demand, behind the same free account you would use to subscribe.
Ask your first question.
Subscribe for $120 a month or $1,200 a year to use the research assistant and read the full Desk Reference, or start by reading the free pages the assistant works from.