What financial compensation can an employee claim?
1. Compensation for loss of earnings during incapacity for work
Put simply, the employee is entitled to be paid the difference between what they earned before the injury or the occupational disease and what they receive during the incapacity for work it caused, that is, wage compensation or sickness benefit.
2. Compensation for loss of earnings after the end of incapacity for work (an annuity)
If the employee does not reach their original earnings, they are entitled to a regular annuity making up the long-term loss of income. The annuity covers the difference in income after the temporary incapacity for work ends, where that difference is a result of the injury or the disease.
3. Compensation for pain and for impaired social functioning
For the injury itself the employee is entitled to a one-off payment for pain.
If the employee is left with permanent consequences, they are also entitled to compensation for impaired social functioning.
4. One-off compensation on termination of employment
Where the employment is terminated by notice given by the employer on the ground that the employee has lost, in the long term, the capacity to do their existing work because of a work injury or an occupational disease, the employee is entitled to a one-off payment of twelve times their average monthly earnings (formerly severance pay).
5. Reimbursement of reasonably incurred costs of treatment
The employee is entitled to reimbursement of reasonably incurred expenses, for example:
- medicines, rehabilitation, medical aids and the like,
- transport to a medical facility,
- or even help in the household, where the injured person cannot look after themselves as a result of the work injury or the occupational disease.
6. Compensation for damage to property
If the employee suffers damage to an item of their property in the accident — typically glasses, a phone or clothing — they are entitled to compensation for that as well.
7. One-off compensation for non-financial harm in cases of particularly serious injury to health
Where an employee suffers very serious damage to health (for example a comatose state or severe brain damage), the people close to them may be entitled to a one-off payment for the mental suffering the situation causes them.
Claims of surviving family members
Different but comparable claims arise for the surviving family where an employee dies as a result of a fatal work injury.
1. Reimbursement of reasonably incurred costs of treatment
As above, where costs connected with the treatment have been incurred, the employee or the other people who incurred them are entitled to reimbursement.
2. Reimbursement of funeral costs
Whoever incurred those costs is entitled to reimbursement of the cost of erecting a memorial or plaque, the charges billed for the funeral, cemetery fees, the cost of adapting the memorial or plaque, travel expenses and part of the usual cost of mourning clothes.
3. Compensation for the cost of maintaining surviving dependants
Surviving dependants whom the deceased employee maintained, or was obliged to maintain, may also be entitled to compensation for that maintenance.
4. One-off compensation for the non-financial harm of surviving family members
This is compensation for the mental suffering caused by the loss of a close person.
How are the claims brought?
Every claim has to be properly documented and proved. For some the situation is easier — loss of earnings, for instance, is largely calculated by the employer — while for others the employee cannot do without some effort of their own: obtaining compensation for pain and for impaired social functioning, for example, usually calls for a medical report of their own.
As can be seen, there is a whole range of claims connected with work injuries and occupational diseases. This article therefore lists them and describes them only briefly. In the next posts we will go through the individual claims in more detail.
