The law requires businesses with at least one employee aside from the owners themselves to carry worker’s compensation insurance. Not having worker’s compensation exposes a business not only to closure but also to hefty fines levied by the state, and civil and criminal suits.
Since it’s the law, businesses are obligated to spend for worker’s compensation insurance. Fortunately for entrepreneurs, there are ways to save money on this type of contractors insurance. Here are some of them.
Create and implement a safety program.
Employers are legally responsible for providing their employees with a safe and healthy workplace. A safety program that addresses hazards in the workplace and implements standard operating procedures for negotiating them can help businesses make their workplace so much safer and healthier.
Safety programs typically institute, among other things, the use of personal protective equipment, the conduct of safety audits, and training employees on how to avoid taking risks when performing their jobs.
With safety programs in place, the likelihood of employees suffering work-related injuries and illnesses is reduced, and that will help lower a business’ worker’s compensation costs.
Get a group rating.
Insurance providers typically offer considerable discounts to clients who get a group rating. And even if your business doesn’t employ that many people, you may still get a group rating if you belong to an industry or trade association with a membership of 300. Of course, your business must first have a safety history that’s better than average to qualify for a group.
Put a return-to-work program in place.
Your workplace could be the safest in the world, and accidents could still happen. If you want to contain the costs of a workplace accident, then you should establish a return-to-work program for injured workers.
It’s a fact that a solid return-to-work program can impact injured workers positively, as the act of showing up to work provides them with a sense of normalcy, which helps speed up the recovery process.
Also, the longer an injured worker is out, the longer the worker’s compensation claim stays open. When that is the case, the benefit total will rise, and so will insurance costs, which your provider will be more than happy to pass on to you. You have to close that claim as quickly as possible, and that’s why you have to keep your lines of communication with the injured worker open. Offer the opportunity to get back on the job, even on a part-time basis or with reduced duties, with the approval, of course, of the employee’s medical provider.
Implement a pre-employment drug testing policy.
Whenever there’s a workplace accident, the workers involved are often subjected to mandatory drug testing.
Drug screening after an accident is, at best, an investigative and punitive tool. How about making it a preventive measure as well?
By implementing a pre-employment drug testing policy, you can avoid hiring people who have substance abuse issues, which, in turn, should also help reduce the risk of workplace accidents and keep your worker’s compensation insurance costs down. Random drug testing among the workforce can also do the same thing.
Worker’s compensation insurance costs businesses, but those costs don’t have to be that high. If you’re the owner of a business, give the tips above a try and save some money on your worker’s comp.
