Domestic Partner Benefits: Corporate Equality Index 2009
92 percent of CEI-rated employers provide partner health coverage to employees (criterion 3a), up 16 percent from the previous year. Of these employers, 67 percent provide them to both same and opposite-sex partners of employees (just a one percentage point increase from last year).
Beyond the extension of basic health insurance coverage, growth continues in the entire set of comprehensive health benefits made available to partners (criterion 3b), with 82 percent of rated employers providing equal dental, vision, dependent medical and Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA)-like continuation coverage, up 19 percent from the previous year. COBRA-equivalent benefits continuation is the area that prevents many employers from obtaining credit on this criterion, which requires that all health benefits be offered equally to opposite-sex spouses and domestic partners of current employees; however, this gap is closing, as 83 percent of rated businesses now have parity in COBRA-like benefits.
Where last year's CEI saw significant growth in comprehensive health benefits but less so in the promotion of parity in "soft" benefits (criterion 3c), such as Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA)-equivalent leave benefits, bereavement leave, retirement benefits and employee discounts, this year the increase is 18 percent for a total of 89 percent.
The CEI requires that at least three benefits be offered equally to opposite-sex spouses and domestic partners. Those "soft" benefits most often extended to domestic partners include bereavement leave (86 percent of rated employers), employee assistance programs (83 percent), relocation assistance (75 percent) and FMLA-like leave (74 percent).
Retirement Benefits
Until the passage of the federal Pension Protection Act of 2006, same-sex partners listed as beneficiaries to retirement plans were prohibited from rolling those retirement plans into their own individual retirement accounts, as opposite-sex spouses were able to do. The Internal Revenue Service issued guidance to employers on how to provide the retirement rollover option in early 2007, but that guidance came too late for the HRC Foundation to include the question on an informational basis in its 2008 CEI survey.
This year, businesses were asked about their retirement plan distribution options for informational purposes only. Forty-seven percent of CEI-rated businesses reported offering the rollover option to same-sex partners and 24 percent reported that the hardship distribution within their retirement plans was offered to same-sex partners.
The HRC Foundation continued to survey employers with defined benefit plans (pensions) on whether they provided survivor options for domestic partners of employees, either in the form of Qualified Joint and Survivor Annuities or Qualified Pre-retirement Survivor Annuities. A total of 43 percent of participating employers indicated that they offer QJSAs to their employees' domestic partners, while 27 percent offer QPSAs.
