Managing Workers Compensation continues to be an issue for many businesses.  Today we are going to offer our top 5 considerations for businesses when it comes to Workers Compensation.  These are by no means comprehensive but should give you a good starting point and we are focusing in on NSW businesses today as each state is slightly different.

Number one, for businesses who are paying in excess of $30,000 per annum in premiums, it is not really insurance.  These businesses are what is considered “Claims Sensitive” meaning that your premiums will be adjusted in accordance with any claims that are being made and in effect you will be required to repay any wages paid out as part of the claim.  This means that these businesses should be proactively managing claims to resolve them as soon as possible instead of leaving it up to the insurer.

Number two, Businesses have up to 48 hours to report any workplace injuries to avoid any potential late penalties.  There is no real incentive for businesses to delay reporting any workplace incidents to your insurer.

Number three, builds upon the previous point in that reports can be lodged via an incident report or a description of the incident.  There is no need to await a workers compensation certificate of capacity prior to reporting the incident.  This is a common area where businesses expose themselves to risk of penalties by not reporting an incident within the first 48 hours. 

Number 4, for claims sensitive businesses the primary factor that impacts premium increases is wages, not medical expenses.  In other words, there is a motivation wherever safe, to encourage workers to return to work even if they carry out duties that are significantly different from their usual work.  Of course this is subject to duties that they are capable of carrying out both from a skill set as well as any restrictions placed on the employee as part of their claim.

And finally number 5 is that it may be possible to terminate the employee should there be no reasonable prospect for them to return to pre-injury duties after 6 months.  Please note that a robust and compliant termination process would still be required in this instance.  Further, termination of employment does not impact on the employees workers compensation claim and any wages paid to the employee will continue to impact future premiums for claims sensitive businesses.

So there we have the top 5 considerations for businesses when it comes to managing workers compensations.  The key takeaway from this session is that for many businesses it is essential for them to proactively manage claims and not simply “let them take their course”.