|
|
|
Workers Comp: Mystery to Many
|
Business New Haven
9/3/2002
By: BNH
|
HARTFORD - Employees in blue-collar jobs expect to be injured on the job more frequently than white-collar workers - and they are. But many workers have little understanding of workers compensation, the system that provides medical coverage and salary benefits for workers injured on the job.
A national workplace survey sponsored by the Hartford Financial Services Group Inc., one of the nation's largest providers of workers comp insurance, found that 58 percent of blue-collar households have a family member whose job-related injury required medical attention. Just 38 percent of white-collar workers reported the same.
The Hartford survey, employing the job classifications defined by the U.S. Department of Labor, also found that the average blue-collar worker expected to be injured on the job more often than the average white-collar worker. Indeed, blue-collar workers said it was “quite likely” they would be injured on the job at least once during the careers, while their white-collar peers believed there was little chance of that happening.
Despite the high-expectation of injury among blue-collar workers, most of them evinced little understanding of the system that protects them. The same holds true for white-collar workers. In fact, only 62 percent of the survey respondents knew that medical costs related to on-the-job injuries would usually be covered by workers compensation.
Twenty-five percent incorrectly believed that on-the-job medical costs would be covered by their employers' medical insurance, eight percent erroneously thought they would be covered by employee disability insurance, and another five percent mistakenly assumed these costs would be paid out-of-pocket by either their employer or themselves.
This misunderstanding extends even to workers who had been injured or had a family member injured on the job. Among this group, nearly one-third did not know who actually pays injured workers' medical expenses.
|
Go FirstGo PreviousGo
NextGo LastGo
to Index
|
|
