Archive for January 20th, 2011
When you are injured on the job your first concern is usually dealing with the actual injury. On top of dealing with the medical side of an injury, you need to face up to the financial consequences of a serious injury. You will be unable to work for a certain amount of time and will lose your salary. At the same time, you are incurring expensive medical bills that will need to be paid in addition to your family’s normal living expenses. This is why workers compensation insurance was created and why part of your paycheck has gone to this fund for as long as you’ve been working.
Since you’ve been paying into the fund your whole working life, you would think it would be easy to claim your benefits so that you can pay your medical bills and feed your family. You would be wrong. A number of factors come into play when you make a workers comp claim. You have to prove that your injury occurred at work, that it was serious enough to keep you from working, and that you have a legitimate claim against your employer and their insurance company.
All it takes is one mistake in filling out your claim or one missed deadline and your claim will be automatically denied. In addition, some employers and insurance companies have a policy of denying all claims or of doing everything they can to prevent you from claiming your benefits. This can lead to months or even years of battles and may even end up with you having to go to court to force the issue. You may need to hire a Fort Lauderdale Workers Compensation Attorney in order to get the benefits or settlement to which you are entitled, so be prepared for that possibility.
