TRR Workers’ Comp How to Check my Employers Coverage

Video Transcript

Okay, my name is Bill Turley. I’m one of the partners at Turley, Redmond and Rosasco, and I’m here today to talk to you about what you can do to obtain insurance information that you need for your workers’ compensation claim.

So, you’ve been injured on the job and you need medical treatment. Typically, your first encounter is gonna be with a hospital emergency room or a walk-in center. And when you go there, they’re gonna ask for your employer’s information, and they’ll ask you for the details of how your accident happened. But if you need to follow up with a specialist or you need continuing medical care, you’re gonna need the name of your insurance carrier, the policy number, and most importantly, the claim number.

So, how do you go about getting this information? Well, the obvious way is just ask your employer, “What’s the name of our insurance company, and what’s the policy number?” Another way you can find that information is it really should be posted in the employees’ area, either by the time clock if you have a time clock in your place of business or around, usually, the employee lounge or break room. But sometimes, you might be in an adversarial or uncomfortable situation with the employer where you’re not in a position to speak with the boss or you can’t get access to this information. What you can do is you can go to the Workers’ Compensation Board website at www.wcb.ny.gov. And when you get on the site, on the right-hand side, you’re going to see a button for something called does my employer have coverage, so you click that on and you can enter information into that area of the website and they will be able to tell you the name of the insurance company and the policy number.

However, that is not always 100%, especially if you have a small employer. Or if the employer is insured under another name, it may not necessarily come up on the website. So another thing you could do is just simply file the C-3, which is the employee’s claim for injury, and that can also be obtained on the website www.wcb.ny.org. And you go to the form section and you look for form C-3 and it’s called, again, employee’s claim for injury. And you can file that electronically online or you can also print out a paper version of it and mail it in to the Workers’ Comp Board. So what will happen is once the Workers’ Comp Board receives that information, they can look up the insurance company for you and get that for you.

But, unfortunately, none of these steps that I mentioned are going to get you the all-important claim number or carrier case number. This is the number that the insurance company use to identify your specific claim, and, you know, a specialist, an orthopedic surgeon, or a neurologist is going to need this number because this is how they do their billing, this is how they get authorization and approval for various tests. So, unfortunately, none of the methods that I just mentioned are gonna get you that all-important claim number and that’s why it’s always a good idea to consult with an attorney who understands the ins and outs of the workers’ compensation system to help you with issues like getting a carrier case number or claim number.

So if you’ve been injured on the job, give us a call at 631-582-3700 or visit our website at www.nydisabilitylaw.com for a free consultation. I’m Bill Turley and thanks for watching.