Workers’ Compensation

Special payments to which all employees are entitled in case of injury or illness caused by the job’s conditions are called workers’ compensation or commonly used workers comp. It’s a kind of government provided insurance, which includes replacement of the main income with medical or healthcare benefits.

Most countries have their own workers’ compensation laws, which are determined by charged organs and sets of papers.

Kinds of payments

Replacement of salary. Usually workers’ compensation is paid instead of salary in case an employee isn’t able to work. However, the amount of money paid is less than a normal person’s salary.

Medical benefits. Such benefits are difficult to get as they cover only cases when an employee gets hurt during the work time directly by the job's equipment. For instance, if an employee gets his limb cut by a mechanism during the work day he or she has every right to receive compensation, in case something similar happens on the way to work compensation is provided, but it’s an equivalent of sick pay.

In case a job-related incident led to an employee's death, family members should be provided worker’s compensation.

Legal aspect of Workers’ Compensation

On the one hand workers’ compensation guarantees that an employee is provided with a certain amount of money in the case of an incident, on the other hand it also protects an employer. As soon as the employee consents to the compensation, he or she loses the right to sue his or her employee for negligence.

Workers’ Compensation and insurance fraud

In some cases an employer doesn’t agree with the employee’s injury claim, thus, an authorized body may help in settling the dispute. Such disputes usually refer to the fact whether the employee is really eligible for payments and the employer and work conditions are responsible for the injury.

These disputes may be helpful for employers in situations when the employee lies about the injury severity or the cause of trauma in order to receive more money. In these situations insurance frauds are likely to happen.

Eligible people for Workers’ Compensation

It should be known that not all employees have rights to receive such compensation. It differs from one country to another and even within one country it varies in distinct political entities. However, in most states it’s said that the only people who are eligible for workers’ compensation are regular employees. Independent contractors and freelancers in most cases are not able to get such compensation.

Workers’ Compensation in different countries

Australia. Every political entity in Australia has its own authorized body  to manage workers’ compensation issues. For example, The Workers' Compensation Regulator acts as such a body in Queensland. In addition, each territory has its own set of rules, which all employers must follow. For instance, for Tasmania it’s Workers Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1988.

Germany. Germany has an exceedingly good compensation system. Also, it’s the first compensation system and often it’s taken as a model by other countries. The system provides compensations for wage earners, family helpers and students, children and apprentices. Moreover, most self-employed workers are eligible for workers’ compensation as well.

United States. All states of America have their own rules of compensation, thus, even for the same injury employees may receive different compensation. Generally there are 2 kinds of compensation coverage, the first is Coverage A (it includes all benefits that an employee is entitled to), the second is Coverage B (it covers cases, when minimum payments that are covered by the first coverage are exceeded).