Avoiding Legal Involvement in Worker’s Comp Claims

Worker’s Compensation was established to ensure that injured employees received proper treatment and return to work as quickly as they could. Worker’s comp is not always applied properly and occasionally situations arise where a company will find itself with legal complications from employee injuries. Here are five tips to minimizing your legal involvement in worker’s comp claims.

  1.  Create safety incentive programs for managers. Make it worth the manager’s time to guarantee that safety is a number one priority in the workplace. Associate their bonus or raise structure with the overall safety of the employees.
  2. Establish an outreach program. Assign the task of following up with injured workers once a week to a member of the team. This could be a safety manager or someone in Human Resources. Call any injured employees to see how they are doing and find out if there is anything else that they need. This can give you the knowledge and forewarning you need to face challenges head on before lawyers are called.
  3. Report all injuries. No matter the situation or how severely the employee is injured, always open a worker’s compensation claim. Follow your insurance provider’s procedures. You never know what the long term implications of an injury will be and the worker’s comp system works best when claims are made at the time of the incident. If you wait until a problem arises, it is possible your insurance company will reject the claim and cause your employee to seek counsel on the matter.
  4. Monitor all claims. You want to make sure someone is consistently checking in with the insurance company as to the status of each claim to see where it is in the process. If you discover that there are problems you can get them resolved before the employee becomes concerned.
  5. Don’t treat an injured employee differently than any other employee. An angry employee who feels like their issues aren’t being addressed is more likely to reach out for legal help. Treat the employee with empathy and they are less likely to seek any sort of revenge claim .

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