Employers Are Dropping Domestic Partner Health Care Benefits
Increasingly, same-sex couples are required to marry to receive health care benefits
By Stephen Miller, CEBS
Aug 18, 2017 - SHRM
A growing number of employers are requiring same-sex couples to be married
before an employee's partner can receive health care benefits, recent survey
findings show.
"Domestic partner benefits can be complex to manage, and by offering
consistent coverage for opposite-sex and same-sex couples, employers are able to
ease some of the administrative burden," said Julie Stich, associate vice
president of content at the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans
(IFEBP), an association of benefit plan sponsors based in Brookfield, Wis.
IFEBP recently compared findings from its employee benefits surveys taken
since June 2015, when a U.S. Supreme Court ruling legalized same-sex marriage
throughout the country.
Employers report that from 2014 to 2016:
*The percentage of employers that provide benefits to same-sex partners in
legally recognized civil
unions fell from 51 percent to 31 percent. Most states that previously
registered civil unions stopped doing so after the court's ruling on same-sex
marriage, although not all couples with civil unions have married.
*The percentage of employers that provide benefits to same-sex domestic
partners fell from 59 percent to 48 percent. Existence of domestic partnerships
could be established by employees attesting that they share a common domestic
life with their partner, although some states and localities provided domestic
partnerships registries.
Employers are staying true to their earlier intentions. Immediately after the
Supreme Court ruling, IFEBP found that 3 in 10 employers reported they were
likely to discontinue providing benefits to same-sex domestic partners.
Most companies are offering parity in workplace benefits for lesbian, gay,
bisexual and transgender employees, said Todd Solomon, a partner with McDermott
Will & Emery in Chicago. "Now that same-sex marriage is legal in all 50
states, most companies do not differentiate between types of spouses."
Some Keep Partner Benefits
"I wouldn't expect all employers to drop domestic partner benefits," Stich
said. "Competitive employers are always working to provide an inclusive benefits
package, and offering domestic partner benefits can build a culture of inclusion
and help the company attract the best talent."
Larger organizations are the most likely to maintain domestic partner
benefits, IFEBP found. Three in four organizations (77 percent) with 10,000 or
more employees continue to offer health care benefits to both same-sex and
opposite-sex domestic partners.
Related Article:
Appellate
Ruling Sharpens Scrutiny of Unequal Benefits for Same-Sex Spouses,
SHRM Online Benefits, April 2017