Small Business Of Workers Compensation Insurance

Good for you if you’re building a business and ready to hire your first worker! You have to think about many things, like finding the best person, training them, and maybe even giving them enough work to do. Workers’ comp insurance is something you might not have thought about. Workers’ compensation protects both your business and your workers if one of them gets sick or hurt on the job. What you need to know is listed below.

What is Workers’ Compensation Insurance?

Workers’ compensation insurance can protect your employees and business from accidents, illnesses, and even death at work. Almost every state requires employers to have insurance to pay for workers’ medical bills and lost wages if they get hurt or sick. If you don’t have workers’ compensation insurance, you might be responsible for these costs, and the state might fine or punish you.

Even in the safest places to work, people get hurt on the job. Even if your worker has health insurance, you are still responsible for their medical bills if they get hurt or sick. A worker who can’t work because of an illness or injury is also entitled to a portion of their regular pay. Workers’ comp insurance takes care of these costs. If you don’t have insurance, you’ll have to pay these costs out of your pocket.

You Need Workers’ Compensation Insurance if:

Are you ready to recruit your first employee who has one or more full-time workers or part-time employees (in most states)?

Some examples of claims for workers’ compensation:

Workers’ compensation insurance provides a wide range of protection for your business and workers. Here are some things that could go wrong and how they could be taken care of:

• While putting a box on a high shelf in the warehouse, an employee accidentally knocks over another box, which lands on their head. The worker is taken to the hospital, where a concussion is found. According to the doctor, the employee has to stay in the hospital for 24 hours and stay in bed for a week. Workers’ compensation insurance could pay for the employee’s trip to the hospital and a portion of their wages for the week they missed.
• Most of a data analyst’s workday is spent on the computer. As the day goes on, they feel discomfort in both wrists, which turns into pain. Their doctor says they have carpal tunnel syndrome and wants them to have surgery. Workers’ compensation insurance pays for the surgery and a portion of the employee’s wages while out of work to heal.
• A building that requires to be fixed up has an electrician working on it. The electrician cuts a live wire by accident and gets shocked. The worker lives, but they have to spend a long time in the hospital and get better before going back to work. Workers’ comp insurance pays for the worker’s medical bills and a portion of their lost wages.

Make sure that your business is safe

To ensure your business is fully safe, you might want to add other types of business insurance on top of workers’ comp. There are three types of work liability insurance, and any of them can be combined with workers’ comp insurance to give your business the full insurance coverage it needs.

The General Liability Insurance

General liability insurance also called general commercial liability insurance (CGL), protects your business from claims of bodily injury, medical costs, and property damage by another person or business. To buy workers’ comp insurance, you must have general liability insurance.

Professional Liability Insurance

Professional liability insurance also called mistakes, and omissions coverage or E&O coverage protects your company if you are accused of neglect, even if you haven’t got it wrong.

The policy for business owners

A business owner’s policy (BOP) is a type of insurance that protects your business equipment and general liability insurance, and property insurance.

5 important things small businesses should know about workers’ compensation insurance

The state requires WC coverage.

Texas is the state where WC insurance is not required. Different states have different rules, so if you have employees in more than one state, you need to know the laws in each one. On the US Department of Labor website, you can find a list of state workers’ compensation officials. If you don’t have the correct coverage, you could get fined.

No matter what business you are in.

People sometimes think that workers’ compensation is only for construction trades and other physical labor jobs. Even if your workers spend the whole day in front of a computer, you still need to keep them safe.

Workers’ compensation covers illness, injury, and even death.

Workers’ compensation insurance pays for an employee’s medical bills and a portion of their lost wages if they get hurt or sick or because of something related to their job.

A claim for workers’ compensation is expensive.

Based on data from 2016 from the National Council on Compensation Insurance, the average claim for lost time from work was $29,100. The average claim for compensation was $23,900, making the average total claim $53,000. If you don’t have insurance, this money will come out of your pocket, on top of any fine the state might give you.

Larger businesses can choose to self-insure.

Some employers choose not to buy workers’ compensation insurance because they would rather take care of any injuries or illnesses that happen on the job themselves. Most states let this happen as long as the company can prove it has enough money to pay any claims that may come up. For example, a California company that wants to self-insure must show that it has a net worth of more than $5 million and net profits of more than $500,000 each year for the past five years.