Benefits June 6, 2005

Advocacy Group Survey: Domestic Partner Benefits Up 13% in 2004

June 6, 2005 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - At least 8,250 employers provided domestic partnership health benefits in 2004, up 13% from the previous year, according to a report released Monday by a Washington, DC advocacy group.
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Among the Fortune 500, 216 companies (43%) provided domestic partner benefits, the Human Rights Campaign report said. Seventeen Fortune 500 companies added the benefits in 2004, a 9% increase from the year earlier.

According to the report, 13 Fortune 500 firms announced that they would begin offering the benefits in 2005 and one said the benefits would begin in 2006, bringing the total number of Fortune 500 companies that plan to offer or are already offering domestic partner benefits to 230 by March 1, 2005. That compares to the 21 which offered domestic partner benefits in 1995, the report said.

The report found that nondiscrimination policies covering gender identity and expression continue to rise with a total of 51 Fortune 500 companies including transgender people in their policies, up from the 27 Fortune 500 companies who had the policy in 2003. In addition, the report found that 410 companies in the Fortune 500 included sexual orientation in their nondiscrimination policies at the end of 2004.

The latest report is here .

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