Other requirements may include sharing financial responsibility for basic living expenses and sharing a close personal relationship in which you're responsible for each other's welfare. Also, you can't be married to anyone else, and your domestic partner can't be a close blood relative. Read your employer's benefits policy or talk to the employee benefits manager about the company's dependent eligibility rules.
If you can include your girlfriend and her son on your health insurance plan, be prepared to sign an affidavit and provide evidence about your relationship. Don't fudge the truth. Companies are taking a hard look at dependents to make sure no one is unfairly receiving health insurance benefits and to keep health care costs down.
However, a handful of states continue to allow them. If you're in a domestic partnership state, you might be able to obtain insurance for your partner. A majority of the country's largest corporations offer domestic partner benefits. You can find a list of Fortune companies that provide domestic partner benefits, as well as other information on benefits, on the Human Rights Campaign website. You can also contact your human resource director to see if your employer offers health insurance to domestic partners.
Even if your employer does provide domestic partner health benefits, federal law does not recognize domestic partners as spouses for tax purposes. Tax law treats any premium you pay to cover your domestic partner to be taxable income, not a pre-tax deduction from income as it is when the employee is covering a spouse.
Under COBRA, your employer must allow you to continue health insurance coverage for a certain period of time, as long as you pay the premiums. The law doesn't entitle your partner to continue domestic partner benefits, as would be the case if you were married. If your employer doesn't provide domestic partner health benefits, and your partner doesn't get benefits through a job or doesn't work , see whether your employer will agree to cover your partner on its health plan if you pay for the premiums.
Group plans available through employment are usually less expensive and often provide better coverage than individual plans. In some states, the dependent of a worker killed on the job can obtain death benefits from the state workers' compensation insurance program. Because definitions of "dependent" are broad, courts have allowed unmarried partners to recover these benefits in several instances. For example, a Maryland court awarded workers' compensation benefits to a woman who lived with the deceased worker for many years—giving up her job to take care of the house and raise the children while the deceased provided financial support.
Kendall v. Housing Auth. In California, a court awarded benefits to a woman who lived with the deceased worker because she was a "good faith" member of his household, even though she was married to someone else.
State v. Workers' Compensation Appeals Bd , 94 Cal. And in Oregon, the Workers' Compensation statute states that unmarried cohabitants are entitled to compensation as long as the couple had children together and lived together for more than one year before the worker was injured. However, not all courts have been so generous. In South Carolina, a court denied workers' compensation benefits to a woman living with and dependent on a deceased worker because she was married to another man.
Palm v. General Painting Co. And in Nevada, a court denied death benefits to the unmarried cohabitant of a deceased worker, even where the cohabitant had previously been married to the deceased worker because she no longer had a "legally recognizable relationship" with him.
Banegas v. State Indus. System , 19 P. In many states, an employee may obtain unemployment insurance benefits for quitting a job for "good cause. For example, the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled that a woman who left her job to remain with her living together partner of 13 years who was relocating his business had compelling reasons to quit and was entitled to unemployment insurance benefits.
Reep v. The California Supreme Court also awarded unemployment benefits to an unmarried woman who quit her job to follow her partner to another state. MacGregor v. If the health plans offered through your job do not cover partners unless you are married, you may want to look into buying private insurance. Taking the time to research and review a health insurance policy will help you get the most out of your plan.
Be sure to look up any terms you don't understand. You can also call customer service or talk to your HR department if there is anything you have questions about. In the past, when a couple shared an insurance plan, they had to be married.
However, now, among young adults ages , living together without being married is more common than living with a spouse.
As a result of these trends employers and insurance companies evolved health benefits coverage over time to include domestic partners and offer coverage to more families. Some employers started offering domestic partner plans for couples who could not get married legally, such as same-sex couples or partnerships with nonbinary individuals. Now, they are continuing to revisit their offerings in an effort to attract a wider pool of talent. According to human resource consulting firm Aon Hewitt, more employers are moving toward offering spousal benefits under one umbrella to cover both domestic partnerships and marriages.
Employers may be worried about the cost of offering health insurance to domestic partners and their families. They don't need to be. These studies also show that the actual costs for domestic partner benefits are the same as those of married spousal benefits. If your employer does not provide domestic partner benefits, you could see if your partner's employer does. If neither job does, you can look for your own health insurance package from a private company.
Once you have alternate benefits, make sure they provide coverage equal to or better than the plans you and your partner can get through work. If they don't, you may be better off having separate insurance plans. If you decide to buy private insurance so you can be on the same plan, you have the option to ask for a waiver of health insurance benefits at your job.
You can then try to negotiate alternate compensation from your employer to replace the health insurance they don't have to pay for. You can also ask your employer to add domestic partner benefits to your company's health insurance plan.
Your employer may be more open to the idea if you can show that having plans for unmarried partners isn't more costly than having plans for married spouses. The coverage for domestic partners can be added to most workplace health plans without too much trouble.
Costs for adding a domestic partner to your health insurance plan should be similar to the cost of adding a spouse. Adding children to your plan would present an additional cost. Qualifications for domestic partner status vary by state, insurance provider, and employer. Where these partnerships are recognized, they generally have similar criteria to what qualifies as a marriage.
Check your state laws and company policies to understand the criteria where you live and work. Office of Personnel Management. Human Rights Campaign. National Conference of State Legislatures. New Jersey Department of Health. Census Bureau.
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