Ashland Insurance

Your local Independent Agents Since 1981

Workers' Compensation

State workers’ compensation laws require most employers to compensate employees for illnesses and injuries incurred while working for them. 

Workers’ compensation insurance facilitates compensation released to injured workers or their families for lost wages and pays survivor benefits, medical expenses, and funds rehabilitation programs

Unlike other insurance policies, the main coverage section of a worker’s compensation policy, Part One, does not have a dollar limit. That’s because the insurance company writing your coverage agrees to pay whatever the workers’ compensation regulations of your state stipulate your liability to be, in regards to injuries to your employees. Most states require statutory minimum levels of $500,000 per sickness, $500,000 total per sickness, and $500,000 accident.

Most workers’ compensation policies, however, have a Part Two, called Employer’s Liability – this protects employers from lawsuits that employees may be entitled to bring against their employers under special, though mostly rare, circumstances. This coverage is usually limited to $500,000, but most umbrella policies can raise this limit. 

If you operate in more than one state, your employees will be subject to the workers’ compensation laws of the state they work in, and you will need to purchase coverage accordingly. Even if you do not have operations in other states, but your employees occasionally travel outside your state, you will need an endorsement to your policy, sometimes called an “other states endorsement,” to cover those situations where an employee is injured and may claim benefits under the jurisdiction of a different state.

However, there are five “monopolistic” states who don’t allow for an insurance-carrier to provide competitively priced policies to cover these risks. These states are North Dakota, Ohio, Washington, Wyoming, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands

For further reference: https://www.irmi.com/term/insurance-definitions/monopolistic-state-funds#:~:text=Instead%2C%20each%20jurisdiction%20has%20its,and%20the%20US%20Virgin%20Islands.

In most states, owners of more than 10% of a company are not subject to worker’s compensation coverage. This doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t secure this inexpensive coverage, or even that they can’t get it. It just means that they are not required to purchase the coverage. In most cases, we recommend that companies choose to get the coverage, because of its low-cost premium compared to other methods of covering owner-centric employment-related risk. This means we represent the client at the center of the protection plan. If it benefits the client owners to be covered, we offer it, quote it and document why we think it is beneficial.

When questions around worker’s compensation coverage come up, it is great to be a broker! While we have 92% of our worker’s compensation with a single company due to its:

  • Cost of doing business
  • Minimal taxation
  • Low premiums
  • Flexibility with underwriting
  • Agent assistance
  • Access to coverage
  • Remote resource centers
  • Excellent claims-handling history
  • Low complaint statistics
  • Employer outreach for education and training

It is also great to have another eight companies to round out a healthy quiver of options to meet all employers’ needs!

Now that so many US citizens are working from home, it’s a great time to have a conversation with your insurance agent. There are times when remote workers ARE and ARE NOT covered to work from home. It could be financially painful for a business to be considered negligent by a governing body if its determined that due to their failure to share at-home working situations to their workers compensation insurance company that coverage was not in place! Ask the questions in writing and tuck the response away under “due diligence”!

We love to help companies find and secure coverage that bolsters bottom-line profit, enhances worker safety, is affordable, and meets or exceeds the protective necessity to provide coverage for their most valuable asset: Their team members.

Contact us to ask questions regarding current coverage, to compare pricing for potential switches, to determine pricing on adding owners for coverage, etc. No questions are unreasonable, we are here to help.

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