Workers’ compensation can provide many important protections for workers who suffer injury on the job. But what about employees who experience an injury on the job and cannot fully recover from it? In many cases, injuries suffered on the job lead to some form of permanent disability. Workers’ compensation does feature mechanisms to compensate individuals for permanent disabilities, but it is unlikely that a workers can truly trust the insurance provider to fairly offer compensation without some professional guidance.
If a worker does suffer a permanent disability, workers compensation coverage should compensate that worker for his or her lost ability and any income that the worker may lose over his or her lifetime. While this fact is not usually disputed, insurance companies dependably under-compensate victims for permanent disability. More than anything, this is a matter of preservation for the insurer. It is far less expensive to offer each injured worker less than an injury is worth to see if any individuals simply accept the terms and move on. It is always wise to scrutinize the terms of your workers’ compensation offer for ways it may improve.
If you have any concerns about receiving full compensation for your permanent disability from a work-related injury, an experienced attorney who understands how to fairly assess long-term losses and true values of permanent injuries can be very beneficial.
With proper legal counsel, you can much more effectively pursue complete compensation and ensure that your rights remain secure after a workplace injury. Don’t accept less than you deserve after a permanent injury on the job, especially considering that you’ll continue to live with that disability indefinitely.
Source: Findlaw, “Workers’ Comp Benefits and Returning to Work,” accessed Nov. 03, 2017