Holes In Workers’ Compensation

Workers’ compensation can cover a lot of different injuries and situations that occur on a job site, but employees in New Jersey are often surprised to find out that an injury is not actually covered by their policy. It is important for them to understand that some things will not trigger the policy.

Minor injuries

Worker’s compensation has several main areas that it does not cover. The first and most basic is minor injuries. These are things like cuts and scrapes that do not require anything more than a bandage or other first aid.

Injuries that don’t happen at work

Workers’ comp typically does not cover an injury that happens away from work, even if it affects a worker’s ability to perform their job. This can surprise many workers who expect that because an injury made them unable to work, they are entitled to a payout from the policy, but this is not so.

Mental health and self-inflicted injuries

The other two key gaps are mental health and self-inflicted injuries. Although mental health plays a major role in job performance, workers’ comp policies typically do not have provisions that cover mental health. Self-inflicted injuries don’t qualify even if they do happen at work, so an investigation showing that an injury was self-inflicted can disable the policy.

If a worker is injured, they might assume that they are guaranteed to get coverage though their employer’s workers’ compensation plan. However, they should know that not all injuries will result in compensation, which otherwise might come as an unpleasant surprise at a time when they cannot go to work as they normally would.