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Insurance
Coverage Restored to Employers for Workplace Injuries
You covered
your employees for workers' compensation accidents and you
might reasonably assume that later injuries that occur while
the employee is obtaining medical care for their original
injuries would be covered as well. Until recently, you would
be wrong.
A good
example of the result that we obtain from our unique knowledge
of the narrow confines of workers' compensation law and its
application to the broader context of insurance law can be
found in the reported decision of the Court of Appeals, Price
Mine Services v. Industrial Claim Appeals Office, 64 P3d
936 (Co. App. 2003). We represented an employer who believed
itself to be fully insured for workers' compensation purposes.
However, its insurer took the position at hearing that the
injury, and thus the loss, fell outside and subsequent to,
the expiration of the insurance policy.
Mr. Connell
had been injured on the job and subsequently laid off when
his company ceased operations thereafter. On the way to a
medical appointment for his work-related injury, he was injured
in an automobile accident.
The insurance
company argued that this accident constituted a new claim
for compensation, and, because the company no longer carried
workers' compensation insurance after it had ceased operating,
there was no coverage for this injury. Thus, the insurer's
argument would have subjected the employer to an uninsured
compensation claim, which would have included substantial
penalties for non-insurance.
Furthermore,
if the insurer's position were correct, it would mean that
an employer who ceases operations would have to purchase a
"tail policy" to cover workers' compensation claims,
for an indefinite period of time. We successfully argued on
behalf of the employer that injuries that occur during automobile
accidents while going to or coming from authorized medical
appointments relate back to the employment out of which the
injury being treated arose.
This case
vindicates the interest of all insureds in continuing ongoing
coverage for the consequence of work-related injuries, which
can arise many years after that injury.
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