The benefits of WorkCover

There are a number of benefits of claiming WorkCover, which this page will cover.

WorkCover – the best way to claim lump sums

The number one reason and advantage of claiming WorkCover is that it can offer financial coverage for extended periods of time, and also in certain circumstances can pay lump sum compensation.

The most important thing to note here is that in most cases if you are injured in the course of your work, the only way you can claim a common law lump sum is through the WorkCover scheme.

There is no ability to sue an employer or other party outside of the WorkCover legislation.

If you don’t claim WorkCover you are unlikely to have any insurance policies that pay a lump sum for work related injury, unless it is a total and permanent disablement policy with your superannuation fund. Most private insurance policies will exclude work related injuries or require you to claim lump sums through WorkCover first, and if they exceed the amount payable on the private insurance policy, the policy is not paid.

Income support – better than employment entitlements

The other major benefit is the income support that WorkCover will provide if you are injured and cannot work or are restricted in working.

If you don’t claim WorkCover when injured at work, you could use your sick leave and any annual leave or long service leave, if you had it.

For most people, their entitlements are going to run out after a number of weeks or months off work.

The advantage of WorkCover is that weekly payments (income support) can continue for up to 130 weeks and in some cases, longer than that.

We are yet to see anyone that has accrued even a year of annual leave that they could use if injured at work.

The other advantage of WorkCover over employment entitlements is if you use your annual leave or long service leave while injured, then you are not going to have that leave to cash out when your employment ends.

The advantage of WorkCover here is that you are not using your own entitlements, and if at some point you are terminated or resign then you will be able to be paid out your accrued entitlements.

You should note that this does not apply to sick leave, unless your contract or enterprise agreement allows for payment of sick leave on termination of employment.

Finally, annual leave should be accruing while you are on WorkCover payments, so instead of using annual leave, you are actually increasing your annual leave.

Funding for medical treatment

The other benefit of WorkCover is the entitlement to have medical treatment funded by WorkCover. If you are injured at work and don’t claim WorkCover, then you will be relying on your own private health insurance, Medicare or simply going it alone.

Medical and like expenses can quickly add up if you need extended courses of physiotherapy treatment, chiropractic treatment or psychology treatment, just to name a few.

These treatments over an extended period of time can add up to 10’s of thousands of dollars if not more.

You also have the benefit of being treated as a private patient, which does get you priority treatment over Medicare funded patients.

Other benefits

Another benefit of WorkCover is that if you have a partial capacity for work there will be support structures in place to assist returning you to work on modified duties.

While this definitely does not always work out and sometimes the return-to-work process can be very stressful for injured workers, there is at least some assistance in facilitating a return-to-work plan that both the employer and the worker agree to.

Getting back to work can be very important for injury recovery outcomes and there is less support if there is no WorkCover claim in place.

There is also better protection of your job if you are off on WorkCover rather than off on sick leave.

While it is debatable whether technically you do have better legal protections when on WorkCover, the majority of employers keep injured workers (on WorkCover) jobs open for at least 52 weeks after the injury occurred.

If off work on sick leave or unpaid leave, job protection may only be in place for about three months.

Conclusion

While the WorkCover system is far from being perfect it is still the main way to get support after an injury at work. Having read this page, hopefully you will have a good understanding of whether WorkCover is right for you in your circumstances.