Workers Compensation: How Businesses Can Stay One Step Ahead
As an employer, employee safety should be on top of your mind. If someone gets injured or sick on duty, you must absolutely compensate them. This is something you are legally bound to do. While it is your responsibility, attention to workers’ health and wellness gets you their loyalty and builds your reputation as an employer. The first thing you should do is to be one step ahead with workers’ compensation.
As an employer, employee safety should be on top of your mind. If someone gets injured or sick on duty, you must absolutely compensate them. This is something you are legally bound to do.
While it is your responsibility, attention to workers’ health and wellness gets you their loyalty and builds your reputation as an employer. The first thing you should do is to be one step ahead with workers’ compensation.
Having a proper insurance cover is the smartest move because you wouldn’t want to be burdened with massive expenses when an accident happens. Being aware of certain workers’ compensation facts can be of help in dealing with such situations. If you want your employees to feel safe in the business, you need to show them that they ARE safe with the correct insurance.
As well as the right coverage for workers’ compensation, you need to keep the public and others coming in and out of your business safe with liability insurance, too. Your business needs to be one step ahead with its employees, but you also want to ensure that you are supportive to those coming in from the outside, too.
Insurance is the right step to take and it’s important to research your options before you get started. Insurance should be a part of your business plan from day one, and you should take as many types as your business needs to be good for your employees and those incoming to your business.
Employee health insurance doesn’t cover work-related injuries
Insurance providers are known for making all the efforts for having someone else bear the burden. If your employee gets injured at the workplace, you cannot expect their health insurance carrier to pay them. Rather, the carrier would advise them to file a workers’ compensation claim for recovering the damages.
It becomes clear that every employer must have the proper coverage in place to handle such circumstances because accidents can happen despite the best precautions.
Understanding the premium value is important
While you must have proper workers’ compensation coverage, it is important that the premium value should match. After all, you wouldn’t want to pay too much yet getting ample coverage is valuable.
A Workers Compensation Audit can ensure that your coverage and premium match. The audit verified your company’s payroll because the premium value is based on the amount of compensation you pay to the employees over a policy term. Further, the premium depends on job classifications in terms of the amount of risk that the workers face. If the audit finds changes in job roles, the premium value will change.
Knowing the legitimate claims
Even as you would be willing to bear the responsibility for workers’ injuries, you would want to pay only the legitimate claims. It is worth understanding what qualifies and what doesn’t.
A physical injury sustained by an employee while performing their job properly and safely is usually covered by workers’ compensation. The ones caused by their own negligence or lack of proper care despite the best training do not qualify. Similarly, employees may claim medical costs and lost wages for the health issues they face poor working conditions and prolonged chemical or environmental exposures at the workplace.
Deciding who does not qualify
Apart from knowing the legitimate claims, you must also understand that everyone working for your company may not qualify for workers’ compensation claims. Under most circumstances, independent contractors are not eligible to file for their injuries. Offsite injuries, such as those happening in road accidents while the employee is commuting or not driving for work duties, are also not eligible. Similarly, you will not have to compensate for self-inflicted injuries that happen due to negligence, misbehaviour, or substance abuse.
While you must care for your employees as an ideal employer, it is advisable to understand the workers’ compensation law well enough. These facts can definitely help in deciding when you are legitimately required to pay.