Are employers in the state of Texas required to carry workers comp insurance? In this video, Austin personal injury attorney Aaron Allison explains. For more information, call (512) 474-8346.
Video Transcription:
Texas is the only state in the Union which doesn’t require employers to have real workers comp insurance. About 47% of all Texas employers now are non-subscribers to workers comp, meaning that they’ve opted out of the workers comp system. They haven’t paid the premium for a legitimate worker’s comp insurance and they’re called nonsubscribers and the law is very different in how it affects them as it does the subscribing employer. A list of some of the non subscribing employers in Texas is Walmart, Target, Home Depot, Lowe’s, any of the large retailers in Texas, the vast majority of them are now nonsubscribers. Hospitals, nursing homes, hospice care, the vast majority of them are non-subscribers to workers comp. Now, if you’re injured on the job for non-subscribing employer, most of the non subscribing employers will have what’s called an injured employee plan. It’s a type of insurance that they buy and it looks very much like and operates very much like real workers comp insurance. The injured worker has a limited period of time to notify the employer of the injury on the job, the employer will pay a percentage of their lost wages to them and will provide medical attention or pay the cost, medical costs for them. Now, those employers, for nonsubscribers, they own those injured employee plans, they fund them and they administer them, so they have a lot of control over those plans and a lot of times their disputes and/or denials for medical services or lost wages to the injured worker under those plans. For more information, go to AaronAllisonLawFirm.com.
