Cobra for "Domestic Partners"

[Guest Stephen47]

A self funded group of mine has approved coverage for the employee's "domestic partners". What, if any, cobra benefits are available to "domestic partners"? And what qualifies as a "qualifying event" in this situation(as domestic partners rarely get married)?

Also, per a new negotiated contract, the employees are contributing a higher percentage of their premium. I have been told that this qualifies as an open ennrollment. Does it?

[KIP KRAUS]

According to the definition of a "Qualified Beneficiary", domestic partners would not have COBRA rights. A QB must be a spouse or dependent child of a covered employee.

This was discussed earlier this month. Check the previuos postings. The answer is it depends on what is concidered a substantial increase. Your judgement should come into play here.

[Guest nac]

We offer DP benefits under our self-funded plan. Our contract extends a "COBRA-like" extension to DP's whose coverage terminates. It's limited to 18 months only - does not go to 29 or 36, regardless of circumstances. Note, we're not required by law to do so, we simply do it as a business practice.

[KIP KRAUS]

nac:

That's interesting. How do you controle eligibility? How do you know if a DP is a real DP? What evidence do you ask for?

Do you cover dependent children of DPs? How do you controle this?

I've never worked for an employer who offers DP coverage so I'm curious about controles for this type of program.

[Guest nac]

We actually make it pretty easy; because it's same-sex there aren't a large number of takers. It's very well-received, however, and a great recruiting tool, especially in hi-tech areas.

Eligibility: we ask for a signed (but not notarized) affidavit of domestic partnership. We don't conduct an in-depth investigation, but use the standard definition of DP in the affidavit (i.e., financial interdependence, common residence, emotional commitment and a minimum of one year co-residing). We don't have the systems capability of deducting on an after-tax basis for DPs and their children - - they don't fit the IRC definition for before-tax treatment - - so the employee has to write us a check each month for the contributions.

We cover dependent children of DPs only if they reside with the employee.

The big question for us was how to handle DPs if the relationship terminates. We're not obligated to offer COBRA but wanted to be sure to cover that base, which is why we extend COBRA-like coverage. The employee must sign a form indicating that the partnership has terminated and there is then a minimum one-year wait before he/she can add a new DP.

As I said, it has high perceived value despite the fact that we only have about 6 takers on an employee base of 3000. It's virtually no cost (Segal Co. had indicated about .1% incremental cost, and, for us anyway, even that turned out to be on the high side).

We struggled with the same-sex only question. We've had the expected round of "it's discriminatory" complaints from the opposite-sex DP people. Our conclusion, before we rolled this out, was that opposite-sex DPs have the ability to marry where same-sex DPs do not, and therefore, opposite-sex DPs don't need the same accommodation.

Kip, if you're interested, I can send you our DP enrollment kit so you can see exactly what we ask for. Just let me know by e-mail.

[KIP KRAUS]

nac:

Thanks for your response. You've satisfied my curiosity.

[Guest Stover]

And remember, there are some jurisdictions where being a domestic partner may violate local or state law. In which case this accomodation to the plan may not be acceptable.