Warning for business owners
— check your health insurance policy before excluding yourself on workers comp.
To lower workers comp premiums, business owners often exclude themselves from workers comp, thinking they have coverage for injuries and sickness on their health insurance policies. Before adopting this strategy, it makes sense to check your health insurance policy to make sure it does not impose an exclusion for work related injuries. Some health policies exclude injuries that “could have been covered by workers comp”; which would be a problem if the owner chose to exclude workers comp benefits even though he had the ability to be included. Other health policies flat out exclude any work related injury whether a workers comp policy exists or not. Bottom line— read the exclusion pages in your health insurance or call your health insurance company for clarification. Serious injuries are difficult to finance out of pocket— make sure you have the proper insurance in place to protect your health and your bank account.
