Today, somewhat surprisingly, abortion travel benefits are said to be a mainstay at large employers. It’s not surprising, however, that companies seem even less eager to discuss them. Among 20 companies that, in 2022, confirmed their commitments to covering the costs of travel for abortion, Fortune found that five—Citi, JPMorgan, HPE, Levi’s, Yelp—still have those benefits in place, often as part of an umbrella policy for other types of health care or procedure that’s not available in an employee’s home state.
While many companies acknowledge that the benefit was initially created in response to the loss of reproductive health care access in 2022, they often emphasized that the benefit was later expanded. In a few statements sent to Fortune, all the companies would say about the benefits is some variation on, “We believe our employees should have consistent healthcare coverage, regardless of where they live.”
The silence shouldn’t be misinterpreted as a sign that benefits have fallen out of favor, according to Ben Conley, an attorney at Seyfarth Shaw who was hired by several top companies to set up the travel coverage in 2022. He says he hasn’t seen any data or trend to suggest that employers are revoking the benefit. Amy Spurling, CEO and founder of Compt, an HR benefits platform, similarly says she has seen steady interest in these plans among employers for whom abortion bans are relevant. “You can do very broad-based, 100% personalized health benefits,” she said, “It’s not tied to insurance. It allows employees to go and get the care they need if they don’t have access to it.”
Still, the need to tread lightly, or at least be aware of the risks to touting the benefits, remains, says Conley. Companies are left trying to thread the needle between serving employees and protecting their businesses.
One year later, as Roe v. Wade appeared to be in jeopardy, there was a “flurry” of activity among employers, says Conley. It was still an era when CEOs were expected to respond to employee demands for statements on controversial laws and social causes, which explained some of the corporate response. Conley believes most corporations sought to make their benefit offerings equitable across their workforce, without allowing geography to disadvantage some.
Companies amended insurance policies to add travel costs as part of a medical reimbursement benefit, while others created stipends that could be accessed separately from insurance schemes. Among those that fell into the second category, many large companies relied on a self-certifying system, saying they trusted employees to use the coverage of up to, for example, $2,000, for its stated purpose. “Some of the employers who had gone that route—we trust you to use this appropriately—were seeing a surprising amount of fraud in their employee population, where people were just using this as a vacation slush fund,” Conley notes. Such fraud was rare, he adds, but it was enough to push HR departments to adopt better oversight provisions, such as using a third-party to help validate claims or setting a cap on stipend reimbursements. Eventually, the template for the benefit became more standardized, making it less necessary for companies to engage attorneys.
“I don’t want to create a paper trail for people to get sued. I don’t want to create a paper trail for companies to be subject to [investigations] by local governments,” she explains, “so we deliberately do not have that type of information.”
But Conley believes employers have likely received a minuscule number of claims, not for lack of trying to make the reimbursement process straightforward and free of privacy concerns. Navigating the health system and insurance can be complex, he says, and submitting receipts and tracking expenses can be a hassle for any type of benefit. The benefit can be “life-changing” for the person who does use it, he said. But consider state laws targeting women seeking abortions, and anyone who helps them, and most people are going to be reluctant to discuss their travel plans with anyone, let alone hand in receipts to their employer.
That’s also part of the reason the benefit has survived. “There’s some thinking in the business community that if your goal is to restrict access to abortions, this is a less logical angle to do so,” the lawyer says. Anti-abortion activists can have a larger impact through other means.
Planned Parenthood did not respond to a request for comment.
“The vast majority of employers who implemented these types of programs back in 2022 did so in a manner such that they don’t feel intense public pressure or scrutiny right now,” Conley, the employment lawyer, says. His advice for companies that have yet to adopt the benefit hasn’t changed: First, establish why you’re adding the benefit, a question that will drive its design, what you call it, and how you communicate about it and roll it out. “If the reason that you’re doing it is to meaningfully provide access to a service, there’s not a need to publicly announce ‘This is a new benefit’,” he says, and there are some potential legal risks to doing so.
Spurling shares similar advice for being sensible and stealthy about the benefit and how it’s framed for employees. “Be very pointed on ‘If you can’t get access to care and you’ve got to travel, that’s what this is for,’” she says, “versus saying, ‘Hey, this is for you to go to another state and get an abortion.’”
To be sure, some HR experts fear that companies may still face investigations over these benefits from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), even if they’ve designed the benefit to cover a range of procedures.
For now, companies that want to protect the benefits need to remain vigilant.
