What Is Workers' Compensation?

What you need to know about workers' compensation system, including information on eligibility rules, benefit types and amounts, and settlements.

Updated by , Attorney · UC Law San Francisco

Workers' compensation is a system that exists in all states to protect workers who become hurt on the job or contract an illness as a result of their job. Fundamentally, the system works like this: when a worker becomes injured, rather than sue their employer, they can file a claim for compensation against the employer's workers' comp insurance company.

Workers' comp is a no-fault benefit system designed to help workers who have become injured or sick due to their work conditions or environment. Unfortunately, it is also a system whose outcomes are often unfair to sick and injured workers.

Because the system is complicated, to win a workers' comp claim, a worker should learn about the workers' compensation system in their state and consider hiring a workers' compensation attorney or lawyer to handle a claim, if they can find one.

Benefits provided by the workers' comp system normally include medical care and payment of a certain percentage of a worker's wages, in exchange for the employee's not being able to sue the employer (except in cases involving extreme negligence).

Workers' Comp: Basic Eligibility Requirements

To be eligible for workers' compensation benefits, there are two basic requirements:

  • You must be an employee of a company that has (or was supposed to have) workers' comp insurance.
  • You must have been injured at work or as a result of job-related duties.

Learn more about eligibility for workers' comp, including what employees and what injuries are covered.

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