This Is our Village

Saturday, January 2, 2010

WHAT DOES THE NEW WORKMAN'S COMP COVERAGE COVER?

Dear Lanny,

Your question about the Workman’s Compensation (WC) was referred to me today. I am sorry, but I did not receive an email from you. I get about 150 junk emails a day and if you are not on my safe list, your email ends up in the junk heap.

Q1. All contractors supposed to be insured. The Associations cover themselves under Liability policy.

Q2. To be considered a non-employee for the purposes of the Workman’s Compensation Law, the statue lists several criteria which the independent contractor must meet.

  1. Maintains separate business (own facilities, vehicles, equipment, etc.).
  2. Federal identification number held or applied for (unless not required by federal government, i.e. sole proprietor).
  3. Performs specific work/service for specific amounts of money, controlling the method of performing the work/services.
  4. Incurs the principal expenses of the work/services performed.
  5. Responsible for satisfactory completion of their work/services, or held liable for failure.
  6. Only compensated on commission per job or competitive bid bases.
  7. Realize profit or loss on work/services.
  8. Has recurring liabilities/obligations.
  9. Succeeds or fails based upon business receipts to expenditures.

All of the above must be met. If even one of the above is not met, the person or persons may be considered employees.

One must consider “casual labor” i.e., completed less than 10 days, at a labor cost of less than $500 and is not in the employee’s normal business (easily compare to a resident that doing a job for the Association).

Also, if the contractor uses a sub-contractor, he is liable for the injuries of the subcontractor’s employees if the subcontractor does not carry W.C. Since construction outfits which hire fewer than 4 employees are not statutorily required to secure benefits, their exemption may be waived. By purchasing insurance, the employer & employees become subject to all provisions of the law (for example, limiting the ability to sue & the amounts for compensation). This is a great advantage to the contractor.

Q3. If you have several entities involved in a project, each entity separately can be involved in the liability in various percentages (%).

Q4. Do not mix the requirements of the law about licensing, with injuries of employees. Just because am Association has a WC policy it does not mean that it can hire an unlicensed electrician, etc.

Q5. There are 3 categories of benefits under the Florida Law: a) Medical Expenses (unlimited coverage); b) Disability benefits; and c) Death benefits. We believe that we have sufficient coverage regarding “b” and “c”.

Lanny, as you can see, it is not easy to change the words of the law to layman’s words without jeopardizing the full meaning of the law. All personal or Associations’ questions will be discussed personally and privately.

This is for information only, not to be used in any legal matter

3 comments:

  1. Re email, I see why Mr Gladstone did not get my email either. Is that standard operating procedure for UCO to use a safe list that is going to exclude most of the village residents?
    My Gmail has zero junk and Comcast has very little (just Nigeria).

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  2. You seem to be saying that for the past year our assoc medical expenses coverage was inadequate, despite the new Workman's Comp coverage. What do the Insurance Cmte and Plastridge say about this?
    Where is the hole exactly - unlicensed, and casual workers, 'employees'? Answer as short as possible pls.
    I noticed another blgd using unlicensed, unmarked, tile workers, what to do!

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  3. I tried my question as above also to Mr. Gladstone's official UCO gmail. No answers. I know Mr. Gladstone's first priority is a speedy response to those who do not know who to call for water damage, but an occasional answer would be nice, I thought email was straightened out.

    ReplyDelete

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