Immediate Family

What is Immediate Family?

Your parents, siblings, kids, and other family members that are very close to you can be classified as the immediate family members. It can be defined as a small unit of your family that’s closest to the person. This especially consists of the parents, siblings, and kids of a person, but it can also include your grandparents.

The immediate family member doesn’t necessarily have to be the biological members, i.e. the blood relatives. In fact, the people you are connected to by marriage are also considered the immediate family. For example, the sister-in-law of a woman will be considered as her immediate family, even though they are not related by blood.

Overview of Immediate Family

The exact people included in the immediate family can vary from family to family. It is also determined by state laws. It is important to identify your immediate family members as you can use it to get paid leaves when you need to take care of the sick immediate family member. It also tells you whether you should attend their funeral. Most importantly, the immediate family members have a direct impact on certain restrictions that are imposed on stock Market investors. Let’s take an example.

According to the Rules of Fair Practice introduced by FINRA (Financial Industry Regulatory Authority), an investor is not allowed to sell their hot issues to a person that belongs to their immediate family. Besides that, there are many rules concerning the withholding and free-riding of a person. It can be quite challenging to figure out the number of members that are to be included in the immediate. Usually, the parents and kids are included in the immediate family, but if you are married, then it is going to involve the people your spouse is connected by birth.

How Immediate Family Affects Paid and Unpaid Leaves?

Companies set the paid and unpaid leave policies for employees based on their immediate family members. For instance, the Federal laws do not make it mandatory for the organizations to allow paid leave to employees when they are attending a funeral. However, many organizations allow paid leave when a person has to attend a funeral. They get to decide which members’ funeral should be included in the paid leave package.

For example, the company can decide to pay employees for the funerals of their close family members and some close friends only. This means companies get an opportunity to prepare the sick-leaves policy however they want. If the number of employees working for a company exceeds 50, then the company and employees are supposed to comply with the federal laws.

The government has introduced the Family Medical Leave Act that allows each employee to take leave for 12 weeks without risking their job. However, these leaves won’t be paid. They are only allowed to members that need to look after a sick family member. Note that FMLA includes only the closest family members in your immediate family list, including children, adopted kids, spouses, and parents.