Imagine showing up for work one day; you perform your daily duties with nothing seeming out of the ordinary, at least until a coworker reaches for something on a nearby shelf causing many other items to fall onto your feet resulting in a few bone fractures. Assuming you didn’t wake up that morning expecting something like that to happen, it might catch you off guard. Accidents are inevitable and can happen at any moment, meaning your workplace is no exception to this. Without workers’ compensation, you might literally be stepping into a world of hurt.
Workers’ compensation is a form of Insurance that helps to cover any accidents that occur while you’re on the job. In order to truly understand the essence of carrying workers’ comp, you’ll first need to find out the benefits not only as an employer but as an employee as well.
5 Benefits of Workers’ Comp. Insurance:
1. On the job Injuries/Illnesses Coverage
Let’s say for example, you had a coworker who worked for a painting company that specialized in water tower paintings but a small misstep on top of the water tower led him to fall over the rail and miraculously only breaking a couple of bones. The payments needed for any medical expenses would be covered.
2. Death Benefits
On the other hand, if that misstep resulted in falling over and landing 165 feet to his death, workers’ comp. will cover the expenses for burial and pay out to dependents of the employee. Fortunately, workers’ compensation has death benefits; not that death would be something to anticipate but just know that if necessary, it will cover expenses.
3. Replaced Income
Now you might be thinking, okay that’s great and all but what would happen with work if I’m not able to come in because of my injuries? Well, worker’s compensation can replace some of your lost income from the time that you were unable to come into work. This would include compensation for lost wages due to any of the following situations: temporary total disability, temporary partial disability, permanent total disability or permanent partial disability. The difference between a temporary and permanent injury is just that – they either prevent you from completing work duties for a limited time or forever with long-lasting or temporary damages from the accident.
4. No Cost… to Employees
Employees, you can take a breather because the good part is that the company won’t be charging you for carrying workers’ compensation.
5. TEXAS: No Obligation… for Employers
In Texas, it is not legally mandatory to have workers’ compensation coverage but just know that as an employer if you decide to go “bare” without coverage, it may lead to a load of problems that you might not want to deal with. You would run the risk of getting sued by employees over the injury and the cost for this could be quite dreadful. As an employer, you wouldn’t be able to argue that the incident was caused by negligence or that the employee injured themselves even though they were aware of the danger.
Keep in mind that not everything is covered by the workers’ compensation policy. If an accident happened while committing self-harm or substance abuse, workers’ comp cannot cover the cost. Simply put, Workers’ Comp will only cover “on the job injuries.”