Single Vs. Family Coverage

sfmerv

New Member
1
i'm new to this. have had this question - 2 employees, same titles, same employee class, same salary doing the same type of work, having equal experience and time on the job.

one is single, the other is married with 2 kids. the company decided to pay 75% of health insurance coverage for all employees. obvious, the married person's insurance will cost the company more, therefore he is getting a higher monetary benefit than the single person.

is this legal, could this be consider wage discrimination? what normally happens in this case? shouldn't the family person pay more of his family's coverage?
 
the company decided to pay 75% of health insurance coverage for all employees.

are you sure it is not 75% of emp only.........that is what usually is the case....kinda rare these days that the company also pays a portion of family coverage......
 
i'm new to this. have had this question - 2 employees, same titles, same employee class, same salary doing the same type of work, having equal experience and time on the job.

one is single, the other is married with 2 kids. the company decided to pay 75% of health insurance coverage for all employees. obvious, the married person's insurance will cost the company more, therefore he is getting a higher monetary benefit than the single person.

is this legal, could this be consider wage discrimination? what normally happens in this case? shouldn't the family person pay more of his family's coverage?



As long as employer is willing to pay the same percentage for any other employee's family there should not be a problem. If the single person were to have a kid then the kid would have same percentage that the family is getting. Unless I miss understood the question, I am not sure what the problem is. If all percentages are equal then why is there a complaint. The employer does not have to do a percentage for the family members but that is their choice. The single person may reap the benefits down the road.
 
Noel is correct, but let me add a condition. There could be situations that you described that could have different contribution levels, such as two different geographic locations. But aside from a few isolated situations you should be ok.
 
Assuming situation is as you describe and not as stibroker describes, not too different from charging an average single rate and an average couple or family rate. In those situations the younger people subsidize the older people and employers have some incentive to remove older workers from the workforce.
 
You should read through a bit of IRC Section 125 and then ask more questions. Also, ERISA has very specific rules about what constitutes discrimination (so does IRC Section 125).

Yes, this is perfectly legal.
 
Perfectly, legal. If the single employee were to get married and add people to their insurance, then you would be required to provide them with the same coverage.
 
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