Off The Record – Workers’ Comp – Employer with No Coverage

Video Transcript

My name is Greg Osborn. I’m an attorney at Turley, Redmond & Rosasco, specializing in workers’ compensation claims. Today, we’re gonna talk about something a little different. We’re gonna talk about an employer who does not secure workers’ compensation coverage for his or her employees. Now, if you’re an employee of an employer that does not have workers’ compensation insurance, you still have the same rights under the New York State workers’ compensation system that an employee who does work for an employer who has insurance.

But, again, right now I wanna focus on the employer [inaudible 00:00:36]. New York State requires all employers who have even just one employee to have workers’ compensation coverage. Unfortunately not all employers secure that coverage. We do represent uninsured employers within the state of New York Workers’ Compensation Board. It’s very important if you’re an employer and you have an employee make a claim against you for workers’ compensation benefits and you do not have coverage, to speak to an attorney immediately, because the worker’s compensation case will go on. The judge will make directions for the state of New York to pay the injured workers cash benefits and what could be substantial medical bills. Once the employee is made whole the Workers’ Compensation Board in the state of New York will penalize the employer, and it can be quite significant. You do have certain defenses, and those defenses are similar to what we’ve talked about before, that employer-employee relationship, whether the employee was actually working. But, again, you wanna make sure you cover all your bases, go into court with representation, because you will have many parties looking to secure benefits from you and essentially you could be penalized.

So if you are an employer and you run into a claim whether you think it’s a legitimate claim or not a legitimate claim against an employee, and you do not have workers’ compensation insurance, you can call an attorney and we are very experienced in that area. And you reach us at 516-745-5666.