While you have the right to put in a claim for workers’ compensation if injured at work, not every claim succeeds or results in a payout of sufficient value. Often, those failures are because of something the claimant did or did not do. They could have avoided these mistakes if they had been better informed.
We already talked about the problems you can cause for yourself if you fail to report your injury in time. Here are two more errors that are easy to make, but also simple to avoid.
1. Posting about your accident on social media
You may love posting on social media. That’s your prerogative, but it’s crucial you understand that insurers and employers sometimes use claimants’ posts against them.
Say you are injured while using a machine at work. You post a photo of your injury with an explanation of what happened. A friend comments on the post, saying, “Maybe you shouldn’t have fallen asleep in the safety briefing!” You reply with, “LOL. It was hard not to.”
Whether or not you did fall asleep in the safety briefing may not matter. The insurer may seize upon this interaction to argue that you brought the injury on yourself by not listening to the safety briefing. While workers’ compensation is not fault-based, certain actions can sometimes harm your claim.
2. Doing things because you are bored sitting at home
Say your doctor has written in their report that you will be off work for six months due to the shoulder injury you sustained. Two months in, you are climbing the walls of your home, unused to being so inactive. You decide to repaint the garage door, figuring that is mostly a case of using your good arm, even if you need to use the injured one a little for balance or holding on.
Someone from work drives by and sees you balanced on the ladder. When they get back to work, they casually mention they saw you. This gets back to the boss, who contacts their insurer to see if they can get you back to work sooner. The insurer challenges the original payout by claiming the doctor was overly cautious.
These are easy mistakes to make. However, with appropriate legal guidance, they are easy to avoid.