KEEP EMPLOYER LIABILITY COVERAGE
Danger intrudes when a company deletes Employer Liability coverage from its Workers Comp policy. If a company assumes that the basic state-mandated Workers Comp policy provides all the occupational protection necessary, it may soon find otherwise.
The following situations call for an Employer Liability endorsement in the Workers Comp policy:
- Action-Over Claims: The employee sues the manufacturer of a tool that injured him or her on the job. The manufacturer counter-sues the employer for negligence in failing to supervise the employees on the safe use of its tool.
- Loss of Consortium: A seriously injured or dead employee might have a relative who will sue the firm for the resulting loss of normal relations with the disabled or deceased companion. This absence can affect a son or daughter with a mother or father who can no longer fulfill the proper role of a parent as well as someone whose spouse's sexual functioning has diminished.
- Consequential Bodily Injury: A relative of the injured worker is adversely affected by the worker's injury. For example, a relative must now quit a job to drive the injured worker to the occupational therapist every day.
- Dual Capacity: A firm is sued in a capacity beyond its role as the injured worker's employer. For example, a worker is injured on the job by a tool that was manufactured by the employer; therefore, the first part of the claim responds to the employee's injury on the job, and the second part results from an injury caused by a tool built by the employer.
These occurrences are not far-fetched in the workplace. One frequently hears of such incidents encountered by companies that didn't recognize the potential for trouble when they were reviewing their Workers Comp policy.