Disability Insurance Articles

How Negligence Plays A Role In Disability Insurance Coverage

2010-12-15

Anyone who is working knows that the unplanned things in life are those that can really cause you a lot of trouble. When you are injured or unable to work, disability insurance coverage is absolutely essential: If you do not have coverage, you will be left with no income at all, and run the risk of losing all the things you have worked so hard to achieve and maintain. In disability situations, the question of liability is a big one in some cases, because an injury may often be the result of negligence. Here are some things you need to know about the role that negligence plays in disability insurance coverage.

Negligence may take many forms, especially in the workplace. One example is the employer who has provided an unsafe work environment that leads to an injury. While the employer may not have intended for the environment to be unsafe, seemingly small factors such as spills or an uneven area in the flooring can cause falls and severe injury. It is the responsibility of the employer to provide a safe working environment for their employees, and employers do not always manage to do this at all times. While the negligence may be unintentional, this is still a problem that leads to injury, and the employer is at fault in these cases. When the employee files a claim on their disability insurance coverage, the negligence of the employer will be examined and it will determined if the employer is indeed at fault. When the employer is determined to be negligent, the claim must be paid and the employee must be allowed the time off that is permitted by company policy and by the law.

In some cases of disability insurance coverage claims, the question of negligence is not quite clear cut. Sometimes the employer is partially at fault, but not entirely. If an employee were to take actions that puts him or her at risk for injury, especially actions that are possibly against the prescribed company policy, and the actions result in injury, the fault cannot be assigned entirely to one person. For example, if an employee were to take a short cut to save time while executing work duties, and an injury results since the short cut had an unsafe area, this may fall into the area of contributory negligence. In a case like this the disability insurance coverage may still pay the employee during their time away from the job, but the case must be closely looked at to be sure that the negligence was not entirely a result of the employee making a potentially dangerous action of their own accord.