Workers’ Compensation
What is Workers’ Compensation?
What Does Your Employer Pay?
Getting Lost Wages
Types of Disabilities
What is Workers’ Compensation?
Workers’ Compensation is a type of insurance, paid for by your employer, that provides cash benefits and medical care if you become disabled because of an injury or illness related to your job. Generally, most employees are covered by the Workers’ Compensation Law. If death results, benefits are payable to your surviving spouse and dependents as defined by law.
Instead of suing your employer, which costs both employers and employees a lot of time and money, the workers’ compensation system was developed to promptly compensate employees who are injured. It acts in place of a lawsuit against your employer so if you are injured at work, typically, your only available lawsuit against your employer is a workers’ compensation claim.
What Does Your Employer Pay?
Under workers’ compensation, your employer must pay you benefits–usually lost wages, medical bills, and a lump some for loss of use–and those benefits are the only benefits you can receive for your injury or illness. In return for guaranteed benefits, you don’t have to prove your employer was at fault, any work-related injury is covered. Each state has its own workers’ compensation system. Every system is a little different, but there are similarities. To get the money to pay benefits, employers buy workers’ comp insurance, required by most states. Federal employees have a separate workers’ compensation system, which is similar to most state plans.
Getting Lost Wages
If your work related injury requires you to miss work, you are entitled to lost wages. State law varies on how long you need to be out of work before you can begin getting lost wages and on how much money you can get.
Workers’ Compensation does not cover minor injuries and illnesses. An injury must cause you to miss a certain number of days at work before it is compensable. Once the disability has persisted beyond the waiting period, the employee can begin to recover his or her lost time from work.
Types of Disabilities
The percentage of your wages that is recoverable varies depending on the type of injury, or disability, you have.
Below is a list of disabilities and their descriptions:
- Permanent Partial Disability – A medical disability that lasts for an indefinite period of time and does not prevent the employee from returning to gainful employment
- Permanent Total Disability – A medical disability that is unlikely to improve, despite medical treatment, and prevents the employee from returning to gainful employment
- Temporary Partial Disability – A medical disability that is expected to last for a limited period of time and does not prevent the employee from returning to gainful employment
- Temporary Total Disability – A medical disability that is expected to last for a limited period of time and prevents the employee from returning to gainful employment for that limited period of time
Please contact us if you or a loved one has been hurt at work or has suffered an illness related to their field.
Join us on
Follow us on