protecting employees

clock January 8, 2021

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Workers Compensation or General Liability: What’s Better at Protecting Employees?

As a business owner, there are plenty of things you need to worry about to keep your business running successfully. Of course, it’s important to take care of your customers and manage how your business runs. You also need to worry about protecting employees and customers by having the right kinds of insurance.

You know how confusing all the different insurance options can be. Yet, you want to get this right so your business, your employees, and your customers are covered in the event of an accident. 

Read on to learn liability insurance and workers’ compensation insurance, what they each cover, and how to protect your employees. 

What Is General Liability Insurance?

General liability insurance is often one of the first insurance policies a business will get. It is a general insurance to cover the business for situations that involve liability. A business is not required by law to get general liability insurance but it’s very smart for a business to seek this type of insurance. 

General liability insurance protects your business from a variety of accident scenarios. It also covers your employees when they are in other locations. More on what’s covered shortly. 

When should you get general liability insurance? If you have customers or clients who are on your property, then you need liability insurance to protect the business. 

If you have employees who work in other locations offsite from your business, then you would also want to have general liability.

What Does General Liability Insurance Cover?

General liability insurance offers the liability insurance for your business for a number of scenarios. 

If a customer or client experiences some type of bodily injury on your property, the general liability insurance protects you.  For example, a customer walks across your showroom floor, slips, falls and breaks an ankle. A customer might trip over a rut in your parking lot causing injury. 

General liability will cover your employee’s when they are off site. So, if your employee is working in a client’s home. Let’s say they accidently cause some damage, something valuable breaks for example, then they insurance covers those damages caused by your employee while they are off site. 

General liability also covers potential advertising problems. It protects you from libel or slander claims against your business. It can also help to cover legal costs, evidence costs, fees paid to witnesses in legal actions. If there is a judgment or settlement, the insurance would cover your business. 

What Is Workers Compensation Insurance?

Workers compensation is a special type of insurance that protects your employees in case of injury, illness or death from their time working for you. While the intention of worker’s compensation insurance is to protect the employees, it also protects your business from liability too. 

Most states have worker’s compensation laws that require a business to carry worker’s comp insurance. The laws vary from state to state, so be sure to check your state’s requirements. The requirements might vary depending on the number of employees you have or how much coverage you might need to have. 

Worker’s compensation covers workers when they carry out the tasks connected to their job. This would mean that, of course, they are covered while they are on site at your business location. It also means they are covered when they’re at another location performing their job. 

For example, if your employee is driving a work vehicle to carry out a work-related task and they get into an accident. The worker’s compensation insurance would cover them. If they are working at a customer’s location and have an accident, they are covered this way too. 

Any business with employees should carry worker’s compensation insurance so both the employees and the business are protected.

What Does Worker’s Compensation Insurance Cover?

Worker’s compensation provides a variety of different types of coverage for an injured employee. If an employee is injured on the job, there is a very definite process to make a claim with workers comp insurance. 

Of course, if the injury is emergent, then the employee should get to the nearest emergency room. The employee needs to let their employer know there has been a work related injury. The employer notifies the insurance company. The employee is provided the necessary paperwork or make a claim. 

Depending on the insurance provider, they may require the employee to see an approved medical care provider. Let’s take a closer look at what worker’s compensation covers. 

Medical Treatment

Worker’s compensation covers any needed medical treatment from a work related illness or injury. This would include doctor’s care and any other medical treatments needed because of the injury. If the employee needed surgery or prescriptions because of the injury, this would be covered under the insurance. 

Rehabilitation and Disability Coverage

Often injuries require rehabilitative care. This might mean that an employee needs to see a physical or occupational therapist as part of their recovery. Any rehab care that is needed as a result of the injury would be covered. 

Sometimes a worker might experience the type of injury that prevents them from coming back to their job. Perhaps the injury was severe enough they can no longer perform their previous job. The worker’s compensation insurance can also provide disability payments because the employee can no longer work. 

Wage Replacement

If the employee’s required to not work for a period of time because of the injury, they can get wages paid to them. They would lose because they are unable to work during their recovery.

Liability Insurance

Your business also gets protection from liability because of an injury. This protects the business if there was a lawsuit because of the injury.

The Importance of Protecting Employees

Insurance provides coverage for the business and it also acts protecting employees from injury or illness.

General liability protects your business from accidents that might happen at your business. Worker’s compensation provides coverage for your employees should they be injured or become ill while on the job. 

If you need to get insurance coverage for your business, including worker’s compensation insurance, we can help. Contact us today to get started to make sure you have the insurance coverage you need.

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