4 DOMA-related do’s and don’ts

If your plan doesn’t include a formal definition of spouse the courts may define coverage more broadly than the employer intended.

“If [an employer’s] SPD or insurance contract defines ‘spouse’ as a legally married spouse, then they’re covering same-sex spouses, whether they intended to or not,” says Stover. “If they want to limit how they’re defining a spouse, they need to review the definition. If the definition is five or 10 years old, the courts might look at that definition very differently now than they would have previously.”