Does your business have to have Workers' Compensation insurance?
In most cases, if you have any employees, the answer is yes, which means you have to register your business with your provincial Workers' Compensation Board (WCB)and pay Workers' Compensation insurance premiums based on your industry classification.
Before you start cursing, consider the alternative. What if one of your employees got injured on the job? Could your business afford to pay his or her medical bills, whatever damages were awarded by the courts, and the cost of his or her rehabilitation?
What if more than one worker was injured? Workers' Compensation insurance protects employers from claims resulting from injuries to employees. It protects your business from lawsuits and provides employees with compensation for on-the-job injuries.
The Workers' Compensation Act is based on the Meredith Principle, outlined by then Chief Justice of Ontario, Sir William Meredith, in his report on workers' compensation more than 80 years ago.
The four parts of the principle are that employers bear the direct cost of compensation, receiving protection from lawsuits arising from injuries; workers give up the right to sue their employers and receive compensation benefits at no cost for work-related injuries; negligence and fault for the cause of injury are not considerations; and a system administered by a neutral agency would have exclusive jurisdiction over all matters arising out of the enabling legislation. This neutral agency became the Workers' Compensation Board (WCB).
As an employer, your responsibilities, (besides registering with the appropriate WCB and paying premiums), are to work with employees to prevent illness and injury, and to report injuries and help injured employees return to work.
As you've already guessed, Workers' Compensation is administered provincially rather than federally, which means that exactly which businesses must carry Workers' Compensation insurance and which businesses may choose to carry Workers' Compensation insurance varies from province to territory. Continue on to the next page to learn more about whether or not Workers' Compensation insurance is mandatory for your business.
