To qualify for worker's compensation benefits, you must be "injured in the course of your employment by a risk arising out of your employment."

When you drive to and from work everyday, you are not covered under worker's compensation. In other words, if you get into a car accident and are injured on your way home from work, you will not be entitled to worker's compensation benefits. Of course, there are exceptions to every rule so be sure to consult with an Illinois lawyer who handles worker's compensation cases, but this is the general rule.

On the other hand, if you get into a car accident and are injured on your way to a client site - something that is part of your job and that you are paid to do - you will be covered under worker's compensation.

Similarly, if you are injured on a business trip out of town, you will get worker's compensation even if you are not technically working at the moment you are injured. For example, if you are on a business trip and go out to dinner after work and are injured at the restaurant, you will be covered under worker's compensation.

The standard for coverage while traveling for work is whether what you were doing at the time is considered "reasonably foreseeable." If you are traveling for work and staying at a hotel, it would be reasonably foreseeable that you would go to dinner at a restaurant. Therefore, if injured while doing that, you will get worker's compensation benefits.

Possibly the most notorious example of this was a case where a worker was on business in Hawaii and got hurt riding a bike around a volcano, which is clearly a tourist activity. However, it was reasonably foreseeable that someone who travels to Hawaii for work may do this activity while not working and so was entitled to worker's compensation benefits.

Intoxication, though, is not considered reasonably foreseeable under Illinois law. So, if you get hurt while doing something while on a business trip and are found to have been under the influence while doing it, you will not be covered under worker's compensation.

Under Illinois law, attorneys' fees are limited to 20%. So, your attorney cannot receive more than 20% of the total award you receive. However, in some cases, attorneys' fees may be added to the total award.



Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Michael_Helfand

In many industries there are disreputable small business owners that are notorious for workmen's compensation fraud, where they either withhold the monies and then pocket it, or never pay the actual premiums and allow it to revert back into their cash flow. At first glance, something like this seems like such a criminal act, that folks would want them barred from owning a business for life and thrown in jail.

Of course, there is a secondary consideration to all this. That is that there is so much workmen's compensation fraud on the other side of the equation that the rates have become unbearable and the small businesses really cannot afford them and continue to remain an on-going, viable, and profitable endeavor. Workers are constantly filing fake claims and this raises premiums until the little business guy just can no longer afford it.

Case in point perhaps is the California Department of Insurance and their proposed increase of 23.7% according to the Workers' Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau if the laws are passed, which could cause some small businesses to find their coverage expiring in the middle of a recession. Worse, if the companies try to re-up somewhere else, with another insurance company they can expect to pay the higher rates.

So, what is a California company to do? One option is to leave the state, another is to go out of business and lose everything. And the last option for many is to fail to pay for it, hope things get better, and get thrown in jail for failure to pay or for operating a business without it.




Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Lance_Winslow

Like it or not, you pay for injuries. The insurance companies just finance them.

In fact, on a less severe claim, you will pay them back through an increase in premiums of 100 percent to over 250 percent! They simply cover the initial costs of the claim so its impact on your company is not all at once. The total incurred cost of the claim, total paid and total reserves, are then included in the calculation of your Experience Mod, which will increase or decrease based on the costs and type of the claims.

Let's take a look at an actual example. A Minnesota-based manufacturing company has a manual premium of $215,000 per year. And for simplicity reasons, they have three recordable claims in a policy year.

Every one of these claims is "lost time" claims and the employees were provided with indemnity payments. The impact on these specific claims is listed below:

Total Incurred Cost Impact on EMR Impact on Premium Over 3 years

$288 +.0007 $453 (+157%)

$3,642 +.0113 $7,290 (+200%)

$25,232 +.0316 $20,382 (-20%)

The point of me highlighting the fact that claims are "refinanced" through an increase of premium, is to increase your antenna so you realize even the smallest of claims need your immediate attention. So what can you do about it?

-If your company is based in an Experience Rating Adjustment (ERA) approved state, get your employees on transitional duty before the state specific time period expires.

-Increase employee awareness of the implications that injuries have on them and the ability of the company continuing to function.

-Understand the driving factors of your Experience Mod.

-Conduct a root cause analysis on all injuries, not just certain ones.

-Meet with your agent and adjuster prior to your policy valuation date to evaluate and minimize reserves on open claims.

Of course there is much more that you can do, but by simply understanding the fact that you ultimately pay for your claims will increase your awareness and hopefully lead to implementing workers' compensation and safety strategies to decrease the number of injuries, as well as the overall "hit" your bottom line takes.



Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jeff_Slusser