Workers' compensation insurance, also known as workers' or workmen's comp, is a type of insurance that helps workers who get hurt on the job get paid for their injuries.
Even though the details can be very different from one plan to the next, insurance plans in this category usually offer some form of wage replacement, payment and/or reimbursement of medical costs, compensation for economic losses, possibly damages for pain and suffering, and settlements to the insured's dependents in the case of a fatal work-related accident.
Workers' comp is one of the most important types of insurance a person can get because it covers such a wide range of things and is similar to disability insurance, health insurance, and life insurance, among other things. By learning as much as you can about workers' comp, you can make sure you are covered if you get hurt on the job. If you aren't, you and your family could get into trouble in the future. We all need money to pay the rent and buy food, and getting money for an injury at work can help you pay for these things.
Workers' compensation insurance has usually been offered by labour or professional unions in the past, and it is often the result of organised campaigns to get coverage for union members. Workers' comp supporters say that the most important benefits of the insurance are better working conditions, financial help for employees, and a safety net. People who don't like this kind of insurance say that it raises costs for employers and might take away workers' rights to seek compensation on their own. People also worry that American companies might move parts of their businesses or even their whole businesses to places with less strict workers' compensation laws. In the United States, on the other hand, workers' compensation laws are almost everywhere, and almost all employers must have some kind of insurance for their workers.
Workers' compensation insurance laws have become very complicated and vary from state to state. For example, in many states it is against the law to fire an employee because they filed a claim or told their boss they got hurt at work. This is not against the law in all states, though. Even though most states don't let employers refuse to hire someone because they've filed a workers' compensation claim before, they can check a commercially run database of claims, which could be abused by dishonest employers.
Because employees have also cheated the system, people who file false claims for workers' compensation benefits face stiff fines and other legal consequences. Even though there are a lot of stories about supposedly hurt employees doing physically demanding work, there isn't much hard data to show what percentage, if any, of the claims filed every year are actually false.
The number of false claims has also been cut by employers' thorough investigations, which have included things like secretly videotaping claimants doing physical work. Almost all of the claims that are filed are for real, unavoidable injuries that happened at work.
