Published by J.A. Davis & Associates – San Antonio Personal Injury Lawyers – Workers’ Compensation

What You Should Do When Injured While Working for a Non-Subscribing Employer

The primary difference between subscribing and non-subscribing employers is that an injured worker is prevented from suing a subscribing employer. The worker is limited to the compensation outlined by the workers’ comp statute. The law protects employers who choose to subscribe to the coverage, yet punishes non-subscribers who choose not to be covered by workers comp. In regular courts, injured employees can sue non-subscribers without limit, and recover all damages (compensatory economic, non-economic, and even punitive) which they are entitled to. More about our “Workers Compensation Attorneys San Antonio” here

Under non-subscriber injury law, among the damages you can claim (many of which are not available under workers’ comp) are lost earning capacity due to long-term disability, medical expenses, lost wages from time spent in the hospital, property damage, physical pain, suffering and discomfort, and emotional or mental distress caused by the injury.

When injured and trying to determine if you are covered under workers’ comp or not, you may face the common scenario where your employer is not covered by workers’ comp insurance but will tell you that he is, in order to avoid the much higher potential liability of a non-subscriber work injury lawsuit. Any workers who ask if the employer carries workers’ comp coverage may be lied to outright. This is because of the high cost of workers’ compensation insurance to the employer.

In companies that are involved in inherently dangerous or risky activities and have worksites where accidents are likely to happen (such as construction or demolition companies), opting for workers’ compensation insurance can result in a significant financial burden on the company. So to reduce their overhead, many companies elect to not subscribe to workers’ comp insurance. Often, but not always, to reduce their exposure to risk, they will carry a less expensive private insurance policy. This strategy can save the company money until an accident actually occurs. For companies in accident-prone fields, like construction, playing Russian Roulette with workers’comp coverage is unwise and risky. When an accident does occur, the liability and potential recovery amounts can be “through the roof”, because of non-subscriber injury law, especially in the case of a severe accident or injury. As mentioned earlier, this is because the law frowns upon non-subscribers, and as a way of punishing them for not subscribing, exposes them to extensive liability after an accident. By law, the injured employee is actually allowed to sue the non-subscribing employer for unlimited amounts of money, up to the total value of the losses the employee can prove they incurred.

So it is evident, non-subscribers actually have much to lose after an accident. That is why so many of them pose as subscribers or pretend to be covered by workers’ comp insurance, even to the extent of cutting you checks to compensate you in the small amounts you would have received under workers’ compensation law. If you falsely believe your employer’s claims that these payments are workers’ comp settlements, and you accept them, it will be very difficult later for us to help you get more compensation. Don’t simply accept as the fact your employer’s remarks that they’re covered by workers’ compensation insurance, since only a little over 50 percent of Texas employers carry workers’compensation coverage. Instead, you should ask an experienced non-subscriber work injury attorney, who knows how to dig up the truth and how to respond to the tricks your employer, their attorneys, and their aggressive insurance adjusters may throw at you, to keep them from paying you the full value of your claim.

By now, you can see that if your employer was a non-subscriber when you were injured, you’re probably entitled to a much higher amount of money than you would receive under a workers’ comp policy, and much more than the payoff your employer may have tried offering you. Finding out on your own whether your employer actually carries workers’ comp insurance can be very challenging. The non-subscriber work accident attorneys at our Law Office understand exactly where to look to and how to find if your employer is really carrying coverage, as he stated.