One of the unique features of workers’ compensation insurance is the protection it offers employers against lawsuits over workplace injuries. Regardless of who is at fault, an employee cannot sue their employer if the employer has workers’ compensation coverage. In return, when injuries occur at work or because of your work in a covered workplace, workers are eligible for a wide range of benefits, and support while they recover.
Nova Scotia has among the highest assessment rates in Canada. When employers take steps to provide a safe work environment, it not only keeps employees safe, it reduces workers’ compensation costs for employers.
Insurance Benefits for Your Employees
Workers’ compensation benefits are based on an earnings-loss system. This means an employee is paid a percentage of the wages they lose as a result of a workplace injury. An earnings-loss is the difference between what the employee was earning before their injury and what they are able to earn after their injury.
The WCB also provides a range of health care benefits and services to employees as they prepare to return to work. For those who can’t return to work, we provide long-term benefits, health care and other services.
A safe and timely return to work helps reduce the overall human and financial toll of workplace injuries for both employees and employers.
Reducing the Cost of Injuries
The best way to reduce workers’ compensation premiums is to prevent injuries in the workplace, and if an injury does occur, employers can support injured employees’ efforts to return to work.
In addition, the WCB offers a variety of financial and technical incentives to help employees return to their pre-injury employer or another employer.
These programs include:
- Wage assistance in the form of forgivable loans for employers who hire injured employees
- Assistance with workplace modifications to provide an injured employee with a safe place to work
- Risk-free, on-the-job training where the employer hires an injured employee but pays no wages or benefits during the training period
- Financial assistance for employers who accommodate injured employees by training them to do a new job in their company
For full details on the benefits of coverage please refer to the Employer Information Guide.