Many association Boards of Directors, in an effort to help keep assessment costs low,
decline the purchase of a workers compensation policy for the association. The reasoning
for this is often times based on the presumption that the association has no employees so
a workers comp policy is not needed. This couldn’t be further from the truth! Assured Partners is helping associations to build a stronger understand by providing scenarios in which a workers comp policy covered an association that had no employees.
- An association hired a contractor to replace the roof of their building. The project
was estimated to take approximately 2 weeks time. Due diligence was performed
by the association when they requested & received a certificate of insurance from
the contractor prior to the work commencing, proving that the contractor had met
all insurance requirements on the day the certificate was printed.
Unfortunately, nine days into the project, one of the contractor’s employees fell
off the roof of the association’s building. What the association didn’t know was
that the contractor had actually failed to pay his insurance premium and his policy
was cancelled the day before his employee fell from the roof. When the
employee realized that he could no longer file a claim for workers compensation
insurance through his employer, he sued the association for damages.
Fortunately, they had purchased workers compensation, which covered all losses
suffered by the contractor’s employee.
- A couple of volunteer landscape committee members were out performing their
annual fall planting & clean-up. One of the volunteers was walking with a
garbage bag filled with leaves and failed to see a large hole in the ground in front
of him. He fell into the hole, breaking his ankle and leg in several places. Aside
of his hospital visit, he was also out of work for 2 weeks. If it weren’t for the
association’s workers compensation policy in place, this volunteer would have
had to use his personal health insurance to cover the injury and he would NOT
have been compensated for his time off from work!
A workers compensation policy not only covers injury to paid employees of the
association, but can also cover losses for any non-compensated volunteers of the
association (Board members, committee members, etc.) if properly endorsed.
Further, it will also pay benefits to the spouse and/or dependent children of that volunteer
in the event that there should be a death or long term disability caused while the volunteer
was working on behalf of the association.
