Domestic Partner Benefits

Overview

Universities of Wisconsin extends coverage to domestic partners and partner’s children for the following plans:

• Individual & Family Life Insurance and
• Accidental Death & Dismemberment Insurance

To cover your domestic partner and partner’s children on these plans, you must create a domestic partnership for benefit purposes. Your partnership must meet the following requirements:

• You are both at least 18 years old and competent to enter into a contract; and
• Neither of you may be married to, or in a domestic partnership with another person; and
• Your partnership must not violate Wis. Stats. §765.03, which bars marriage between certain persons based on kinship and divorce; and
• You consider yourselves members of each other’s immediate family; and
• You agree to be responsible for each other’s basic living expenses; and
• You share a common residence – any of the following may apply:
  • One of you has legal ownership of the residence (if ownership is applicable); or
  • One or both of you have additional residences not shared with the other partner; or
  • One of you leaves the common residence with the intent to return.

There are also leave benefits that allow you to take time off to care for a seriously ill domestic partner, their child, or their parent.

See Life Events for how to add your domestic partner and partner’s children to your benefits. This must be done within 30 days of establishing your domestic partnership.

How to Create a Domestic Partnership

Submit a Affidavit of Domestic Partnership (UWS 50) to your benefits contact to create a domestic partnership (form available in the Forms & Resources section below). Submit benefit applications to add your domestic partner and your partner’s children to your coverage at the same time you submit the affidavit. A Universities of Wisconsin domestic partnership cannot be established after the death of the employee or domestic partner.

The effective date of your Universities of Wisconsin Domestic Partnership is the date the affidavit is received by your Universities of Wisconsin benefits contact.

Leave Benefits

Sick Leave

You may use sick leave to care for a domestic partner and/or your partner’s children and/or after the death of the domestic partner or your partner’s children. See Sick Leave for details.

Family & Medical Leave

See Family and Medical Leave for information about the state and federal laws.

Wisconsin Family & Medical Leave (WFMLA)

Provides up to two weeks of job-protected leave per year to care for your domestic partner or your partner’s parent who has a serious health condition.

Provides up to six weeks of job-protected leave within 16 weeks of birth or adoption of a domestic partner’s child.

Federal Family & Medical Leave (FMLA)

Provides up to twelve weeks of job-protected leave per year to care for your domestic partner’s child with a serious health condition and/or after the birth or adoption of your domestic partner’s child.

You must have an in loco parentis relationship to your partner’s child. You stand in loco parentis to a child if you have day-to-day responsibilities relative to the child – no biological or legal relationship to the child is required.

How to End a Domestic Partnership

Submit a Affidavit of Domestic Partnership (UWS 50) to your human resources office to end a domestic partnership (available in the Forms & Resources section below). Submit the affidavit within 30 days of the end of your partnership.

• The domestic partnership ends as of the date your human resources office receives the affidavit.
• It is the responsibility of the domestic partner submitting the affidavit to notify the other domestic partner that he or she is terminating the domestic partnership.
• The termination of the Universities of Wisconsin Domestic Partnership is irrevocable.
• Once a Affidavit of Termination of Domestic Partnership (UWS 50) is filed, you cannot enroll a different domestic partner under any benefit plans for at least 6 months.
• Coverage for your former domestic partner and his/her children end at the end of the month in which the domestic partnership was terminated. However, you will need to remove them from your benefit plans. For more information, refer to Life Events.
• Update your beneficiary designations (if necessary). If you named your former domestic partner as a beneficiary, that designation will remain in force until you file a new designation regardless of the changes in your personal situation.

If You Marry Your Domestic Partner

• If you marry your domestic partner, you or your domestic partner must submit a Affidavit of Domestic Partnership (UWS 50) to your benefits contact and an Affidavit of Termination of Domestic Partnership (ET-2372) to the Department of Employee Trust Funds (available in the Forms & Resources section below) within 30 days of your marriage. Refer to “Domestic Partnership to Marriage” under Life Events for additional information.

Forms & Resources

• Domestic Partner Brochure (ET-2166)
• Affidavit of Domestic Partnership (UWS 50) pdf
• Affidavit of Termination of Domestic Partnership (ET-2372)