What do ERISA attorneys and auditors look for in fiduciary documentation?
Last updated October 2, 2026
Process, not perfection. Counsel and auditors look for contemporaneous evidence that decisions were made deliberately — who had authority, what was considered, what was decided, and what followed up. Minutes, charters, vendor review records, and consistent files demonstrate prudence; gaps and after-the-fact reconstructions undermine it.
ERISA judges fiduciaries on the prudence of their process, and documentation is how process is proven. When attorneys and auditors review a health plan's fiduciary records, they are reading for a consistent few signals:
- Authority: a charter and appointment records showing who was empowered to decide — so decisions weren't made by whoever happened to be in the room
- Deliberation: minutes showing what information the committee reviewed, what alternatives were considered, and the rationale for decisions
- Follow-through: evidence that action items, vendor issues, and compliance deadlines identified in one meeting were resolved by the next
- Contemporaneity: records created at the time of the decision, not assembled after a dispute arose
The consistent professional advice is to document as if a stranger will read the file in five years — because in an audit or lawsuit, one will. A decision that was prudent but undocumented is, for practical legal purposes, indistinguishable from one that never happened.
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