Is Your Employer Not Filing Your Worker's Compensation Claim? What You Should Know

When you are injured at work, you typically are entitled to benefits from your employer's worker's compensation insurance policy. The benefits are meant to pay for your medical expenses and help replace a portion of your salary if you are unable to work. The goal of worker's compensation is so employees do not file a personal injury lawsuit against an employer. Unfortunately, there may be times in which your employer may not cooperate when you file a claim. If this is the case, you need to know the following.

Why Would an Employer Not Be Cooperative?

Although state laws say an employer should have worker's compensation claims information available to all employees, there may be a time when an employer does not have it out in the open. In general, the human resources department will have the information readily available, but others may not. There are any number of reasons why this is the case.

Maybe your human resources department is unorganized and does not have the information on file. Your employer may not want to deal with the work that is involved with filing for benefits for an employee. Still, there may be employers who failed to pay their worker's compensation insurance premium, resulting in a lapse of coverage for injured employees, meaning you would not receive benefits if you file.

What Are Your Options?

No matter the reason, you need to know what to do if your employer is not being cooperative with you on filing for worker's compensation. If you have not already been to your human resources department, go there first and speak to the manager. You need to ask for reasons why your claim is not being expedited in a timely manner. The reason could just be a simple oversight.

If you do not get a good reason as to why your claim has not been filed, you need to speak to your attorney. Your worker's compensation attorney will investigate the issue and look for evidence as to why your claim is not being processed. A worker's compensation claim takes quite a while to move forward, so you need to get started as soon as possible so you can receive your compensation for medical costs and living expenses while you cannot work.

You may get to a point in which you need to file a lawsuit to receive your benefits. You could potentially have tens of thousands of dollars in medical expenses to contend with, depending on your injury, so you need your benefits as quickly as possible.


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