What are other companies doing for employees regarding benefits and pay while on Workers Compensatio
mrwhitt
2 Posts
I'm looking for best practices on what different companies are offering to employees injured on the job outside of the mandated w/c indemnity and medical benefits.
I'd been advised by legal that employees on workers compensation leave should not be treated any better/worse (i.e. provided different benefits or additional pay) than those employees on other types of leave.
Current protocol is that employees on leave (except for those mandated such as USERRA) are terminated at the end of six months if they are unable to return from leave to full duty. Also, they are able to pay for their health insurance for six months at an active employee rate (which is very reasonable) and then offered COBRA.
Does any company do anything special for their w/c employees (i.e. supplement their w/c weekly indemnity; pay for their entire health insurance premium or other benefits and for how long? What length of time are w/c employees kept on leave?
Pdantic
Comments
We have a 6 month leave of absence, regardless if its WC or medical. Employess can either return to regular, full time position or we also have a limited duty program as well. All employees on leave are required to pay for their health inurance premiums, at the employee rate, while on leave. If they are unable to return to any sort of work at the end of 6 moths, they are terminated and offered COBRA.
Hope that helps.
Make sure your WC carrier is aware of any extras/ benefits you are providing to make sure there is no double dipping of wages, payments for benefits etc. Plus there are time when it can be to the employer's benefit to continue paying for certain parts....that can lower the claim/loss ratio and keep premiums lower.
Also since every state's WC laws are different, it is always good to have an interactive conversation with your carrier on what they would suggest for length of leave, termination etc. Some states allow for termination at differing times legally. Many times it is better to offer "light duty" than nothing at all. However, we have chosen to only have light duty positions for WC injuries (not non-work-related ones).
Also make sure you are coinciding with FMLA benefits if applicable. At minimum, those still apply.
And last but not least is to check with your other benefit plans to see what rules they have for "breaks in service", how long a person can be on leave and still be eligible/participating etc.
We've been lucky to not have any long term WC injury leaves..knock on wood....but I suspect we would keep the same leave policies we have for all other types of leave unless our insurance carrier/broker and our counsel suggested otherwise. So I agree with your legal department that you keep all leaves consistent. One thing you have to be careful about is retaliation for making a WC claim.....if you terminate sooner, that could be viewed as retaliation. (for example, if you allow a 6 month WC injury leave, it is truly possible this could come back and set precedent and force you to give non-WC-injury/medical leave for a non-work-related injury or pregnancy...can your company handle that?)