Many businesses fail to purchase workers' compensation insurance ...

Each day in North Carolina individuals are injured while performing tasks tied to their jobs. It happens in a wide variety of positions and depending on the cause, the seriousness of the injuries varies. When a worker is injured on the job, he or she may be able to obtain workers' compensation benefits.

Workers' compensation benefits are obtained by filing a claim with an employer's insurance company. Via such a claim it may be possible to obtain compensation for medical bills and lost wages during the time it takes to recover. When an injury is permanent, workers' compensation benefits could potentially provide benefits for a longer period of time.

All businesses in North Carolina that employ three or more people are required to do one of two things. The business must either purchase a workers' compensation policy or provide information to the Department Of Insurance that supports the contention that it can cover the costs of employees' potential injuries. A problem arises for injured workers when their employer fails to do either of these things.

Though this failure is against the law, the state of North Carolina does not doing anything about it until an injured worker brings the matter to light. In these situations the injured worker could file a lawsuit against his or her employer. In reality however, few workers do this. Instead, they report the failure to state Industrial Commission. The commission, which received 62,409 workers' compensation claims in 2011, can make the business provide workers' the compensation to which they are due for their injuries.

The failure of required businesses to purchase workers' compensation policies can be problematic for both the worker as well as the employer. Injured workers who do not receive the compensation needed due to a lack of the policy run the risk of financial ruin. Similarly, businesses forced by the Industrial Commission to cover the amounts the worker needs, are sometimes faced to declare bankruptcy.

Currently, a business's failure to do so is a Class H felony. Despite this, many businesses that are required to carry workers' compensation insurance, get away without it due to poor enforcement of the law. Most workers would likely agree that this enforcement issue is something that should change.

Source: Charlotte Observer, "When N.C. employers dodge workers' comp costs, employees pay the price," Mandy Locke and David Raynor, April 1, 2012

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