Every workplace is required to have a workers’ insurance policy in case employees are injured while engaged in work-related activities. Getting one for your workplace is essential for your employees’ peace of mind and the avoidance of hefty fines.
It nonetheless also puts your organization at risk of fraudulent claims. You might assume this is nothing since your insurer will handle the payments. A high number of claims from your workplace nonetheless attracts high insurance premiums and paints you as a negligent employer.
Having a personal injury lawyer for your Salt Lake City business and the branches beyond these borders is thus essential. While some companies opt to hire an attorney only when faced with a claim, have yours on retainer to maximize your protection from fraudulent work injury claims.
The following are some of the defense alternatives the attorney might use to deny compensation for fraudulent claims or lower the amount for trumped-up claims.
Failure to Give You Notice
States have different timeframes within which your employee should notify you of injuries he/she suffers in your workplace. In most cases, this timeframe ranges from 30-90 days with different timelines for a verbal and written notification.
While it is easy for people to forget about this notification when injured, their immediate supervisors should notify you of the same so that you can act accordingly. Failure to inform you might be seen as a malicious intent by the employee to defraud you.
No Causal Employment Link
For workers to claim compensation for a work-related injury, there should be a link between the injuries sustained and your workplace. You can thus argue that a worker’s injuries are in no way related to your work activities.
If, for instance, a factory employee sustains a minor finger scrape at work that in the course of other activities of daily living becomes infected and leads to the finger’s amputation, he/she cannot claim for work injury compensation.
Willful Negligence
There are times when employees disregard the safety measures you have put in place and get injured. If for example, an employee fails to wear protective clothing and gets burnt by a chemical in your workplace, he/she cannot claim compensation for this injury.
While people often have differences on whether or not an employee was negligent of his/her safety, this defense can work for your case if you have a seasoned attorney.
Pre-Existing Conditions
Most employees will file claims for conditions they suffered long before they started working for you. Others will include some pre-existing conditions for compensation together with a genuine accident or injury claim.
In both cases, a pre-employment medical assessment will help you prove that the injury someone wants compensation for existed long before he/she started working for you. It is thus prudent to have medical experts assess your employees before employment.
Personal injury claims fraud is one of the most prevalent forms of employee fraud in today’s work environments. Most employers, unfortunately, fall prey to it as they opt to quickly and discretely pay compensation to avoid costly court trials and are none the wiser about the above defenses.
Have an attorney assess all you accident claims and advise you accordingly before accepting responsibility for workplace injuries.