Walt Disney Company will stop covering working spouses under its healthcare plan in 2027 if those spouses have access to coverage through their own employers. The change, first reported by Puck and subsequently confirmed by Disney, applies to the company's more than 200,000 US employees.
The carve-out applies only when the spouse has access to employer-sponsored coverage elsewhere, regardless of the cost or comprehensiveness of that alternative coverage. Spouses without coverage through their own employer, those covered only by dental or vision plans, and domestic partners in the same situation are unaffected. Children and other dependents are not affected, and dental and vision benefits for spouses remain unchanged.
Disney communicated the change through an internal memo from Eric Chaisson, its executive vice president of total rewards and employee services, as part of a broader benefits overhaul the company is calling "Total Rewards." The company described the decision as "making measured adjustments to our employee benefits in response to rising healthcare costs nationwide."
Joshua Lavine, CEO of Capitol Benefits, an insurance advisory firm, was direct about where this sits relative to what large employers typically do: "We've seen employers reducing their contribution toward the spouse's coverage, but not eliminating the coverage option for those people." He described the Disney move to Yahoo Finance as "the extreme, nothing-else-can-work solution," adding: "There are so many options for employers right now to make coverage available to employees that this is really the extreme, nothing-else-can-work solution. A better solution is to reduce, or if you have to, eliminate the employer contribution for spouses."
That framing is important context for benefits advisers fielding questions from mid-market clients who will see this story. A spousal carve-out at a company of Disney's scale becomes a reference point in renewal conversations almost immediately - employers ask whether they can do it, and employees ask whether their employer will follow.
The Affordable Care Act requires large employers to offer coverage to employees and their dependent children but imposes no obligation to cover spouses. Federal law has always given plan sponsors broad latitude on spousal eligibility that most have historically chosen not to exercise.
According to KFF's 2024 Employer Health Benefits Survey, among firms with 200 or more workers, 10% already exclude working spouses from enrollment when those spouses have access to coverage elsewhere, and a further 13% place conditions on spousal enrollment in that scenario - such as surcharges or plan restrictions. Disney's move puts it in that 10%, but Lavine's characterization as "highly unusual" reflects that full exclusion, rather than surcharging or contribution reduction, remains the minority approach even among large employers with the legal authority to implement it.
Disney's decision lands alongside a separate announcement from Deloitte of structural benefits changes for employees in its "Center" model - covering internal IT, finance and administrative functions. Parental leave for those employees will be cut from 16 weeks to eight, the firm's $50,000 adoption and surrogacy benefit will be discontinued, and pension accruals will stop after 2026. All changes take effect January 1, 2027. The parallel timing is not coincidental: Aon projects a 9.5% increase in employer healthcare costs for 2027, the fourth consecutive year of near double-digit trend, with average per-employee costs set to exceed $19,000.
What brokers need to handle at the next open enrollment
For benefits advisers, the Disney story creates two near-term conversations worth getting ahead of before 2027 open enrollment cycles begin.
The first is whether any client is considering a spousal carve-out or contribution change, and whether the necessary administrative infrastructure exists to implement it. Any change to spousal eligibility must be reflected in the plan's summary plan description and open enrollment materials under ERISA before it takes effect. An eligibility verification process - typically through an annual attestation or coordination of benefits check - needs to be in place before the policy takes effect or the plan cannot enforce the carve-out without legal exposure. The IRS requires specific Form 1095-C reporting codes for conditional spousal offers, a detail mid-market employers rarely work through without a broker raising the question first.
The second is the employee communication challenge. A working spouse losing access to an employer's plan - regardless of whether alternative coverage exists - is a benefits reduction that affects family financial planning, and Disney's announcement has generated significant employee pushback precisely because the change applies even when the spouse's own employer plan is materially worse. For any mid-market client considering a similar move, how it is communicated and how much notice is given will shape employee relations as much as the policy itself.
Disney also plans to launch an employee stock purchase plan in 2027, pending regulatory approvals, and will double counseling sessions through its employee assistance program - additions it is offering alongside the spousal carve-out as part of the same "Total Rewards" package framing.
