What is Workers' Compensation insurance?
Workers' compensation insurance is bought to cover damages to life, health or well-being of one or more employees due to situations at work. Whether an employee dies due to an elevator accident in your factory, is injured during a robbery in your bank, or falls sick due to a gas leak in your laboratory, having comprehensive workers' compensation insurance will cover the expenses of treatment and wage compensation while the injured employee is out of work.
When you purchase worker's compensation insurance, your insurance carrier will assume your statutory duty to provide for any medical, death or indemnity benefits according to the law whenever an injury or accident occurs at your workplace.
The capacity of your policy premium reflects on your ability to take care of multiple of workers' compensation at once. Your selected insurance carrier will base your policy premium on your business industry, the wage levels your workers have, and your business' history of workers' compensation claims.
Who needs a Workers' Compensation insurance policy?
Generally, it is wise for employers that own or manage businesses of all sizes and maturity to get aworkers' compensation insurance policy that sufficiently covers them in times of need. Therefore, whether you own a small business or a big company, you ought to get comprehensive workers' compensation coverage.
Depending on your line of work, the state you operate in might make it mandatory for you to have strong workers' compensation insurance coverage. For example, construction companies are required to have ample workers' compensation insurance in most states of the country.
Key benefits of Workers' Compensation insurance
- Depending on your industry, you might be fulfilling a regulatory requirement by getting this coverage
- You will attract more skilled workforce
- You will inspire loyalty among your employees by providing them this benefit
- You get coverage for legal liability and thus avoid huge legal costs of dealing with lawsuits
- You can reinstate an employee in a new role according to their capacity after recovery while your carrier will pay for their training.
Workers' Compensation coverage
Worker's compensation insurance often covers all kinds of medical and wage replacement expenses for employees who have been injured at work. However, it extends to many other kinds of compensations depending on the policy you get.
As an independent insurance agency working to provide inclusive insurance to commercial clients in many industries, Ficke Insurance is a great choice for you to get your business an ironclad workers' compensation insurance policy that would fit your industry-specific needs.
What does Workers' Compensation insurance cover?
Workers' compensation coverage changes with the state where your business is located and where the accident occurs. However, most of the elements that make this insurance so appealing to business owners are generally available in all states of the country.
This is one reason why you need to get your workers' compensation policy through an agency that has access to a wide range of insurance carriers in the country. This way, you can discuss you specific needs to your agent, and they will do the legwork for you, finding you the workers' compensation insurance products that suit your needs perfectly.
Items included in Workers' Compensation insurance coverage
Workers' compensation insurance generally covers the payments, expenses and damages involved in work-related injuries. However, this type of insurance is complex and sophisticated products are available to provide your business ample coverage from a variety of liabilities that may emerge from such an unfortunate situation.
- WORK-RELATED INJURY COVERAGE: The primary reason for this type of insurance to develop, work-related injuries are fully covered in workers' compensation insurance. This coverage extends to complete medical expenditures incurred in the injured employee's recovery.
- WAGE REPLACEMENT COVERAGE: When an employee gets injured at work, they might require some time to recuperate on doctor's orders. Since the cause of this mandatory rest is a work-related injury, the employer's insurance pays the employee for lost wages.
- REHABILITATION COVERAGE: A lot of insurers provide rehabilitation coverage in their workers' compensation policies. This is important in another situation when the injured employee is no longer able to work in their previous job role and you want to keep them working for you but in a different position. Depending on your insurer and policy, you may be able to offer the employee necessary training for the new job without having to pay for it out of your own pocket.
- LEGAL LIABILITY COVERAGE: Your workers' compensation policy can also provide complete legal liability coverage, which comes handy when the injured employee files a lawsuit for extensive damages. In this case, your insurance may cover all legal expenses of the lawsuit.
- ADDITIONAL COVERAGE: You can also get additional coverage in your workers' compensation policy by discussing your specific needs with your insurance agency. At Ficke Insurance, we are often asked by businesses to have special additions made into their policies which we deliver against a bump in their policy premium.
What kinds of businesses often benefit from Workers' Compensation insurance?
All kinds of businesses and organizations go for workers' compensation insurance these days, as it is surely prudent to get sufficient coverage from such potential problems. However, in our experience, the following types of businesses never neglect workers' compensation insurance:
- Construction companies
- Manufacturing businesses
- Factories
- Contractors and sub-contractors
- And many more