Independent Contractors/Occupational Accident Insurance
We Guard Injured Truckers From Occupational Accident Insurance Abuses
Injured workers cost their employers money. Workers’ compensation insurance also costs employers money. Whenever possible, employers would like to get out of paying anything — especially an expensive claim involving an injured truck driver.
At the law office of Jay Gervasi, P.A., we recognize the perilous position that injured truckers can find themselves in when they are labeled independent contractors and left to fend for themselves with the occupational accident insurance company. When employers and insurance companies refuse to play fair, we fight back.
The Truth About Your Insurance, Your Employer And Your Claim
Truck accidents cause devastating injuries. The sheer size of the vehicles involved almost guarantees it. Injured truckers and their families need all the money they can get in order to rebuild their lives.
Occupational accident insurance policies are supposed to be similar to workers’ compensation, but they seldom do enough. Even though the insurance company happily took your money all that time before you were injured, you may find your medical benefits sharply limited and your financial benefits very brief. Most such policies stop all benefits, even medical treatment, at a point two years after the injury, which workers’ compensation does not do. The rate of compensation is usually less than workers’ compensation would pay. And the lack of Industrial Commission oversight, which protects workers in workers' compensation cases, allows the occupational accident insurance carrier to make arbitrary decisions about medical care or wage compensation, with the employee left with little practical recourse.
Worse still, you may even be misclassified as an independent contractor in the first place — and both your employer and your insurance company may know it. Frequently, the insurer that sells the occupational accident insurance policy to a trucking company’s drivers is the same insurer that provides the trucking company’s official employees with workers’ comp coverage. The insurer and the trucking company just manipulate the drivers in order to shift the cost of maintaining the workers’ comp insurance away from the employer.
The vast majority of truck drivers and similar workers, like couriers and delivery workers, who are called independent contractors are, in fact and under the law, employees who are entitled to workers’ compensation benefits, which tend to be much better than the benefits provided by a non-workers’ compensation occupational accident policy. Often, the “independent contractor agreement” the driver signs with the truck company contains so many restrictions on the driver’s work that it defines the driver as an employee. Most drivers cannot be independent, because they lack their own DOT licensure and have to drive under the company’s. The position the occupational accident insurance company puts itself in can provide opportunities for beneficial settlement that is based on worker’s compensation exposure of the employer, not what the policy itself provides.
Neither your employer nor the insurance company is interested in advocating for your legal rights. Get an experienced lawyer who knows the games that employers and insurance companies play. Protect your interests and force the insurance company to pay what you are rightfully owed.
When An Insurance Company Acts In Bad Faith, We Know What To Do
Truckers and other workers misclassified as independent contractors often find their occupational accident insurance inadequate. Plus, insurance companies will try to delay, deny, and underpay claims whenever possible.
Attorney Jay Gervasi knows how insurance companies work. He has experience inside the industry as one of their defense attorneys, along with decades of experience fighting for the rights of the injured. He can use that experience to your advantage. He is also a board-certified specialist for workers’ compensation, which means that he knows workers’ comp laws better than the insurance companies do.
Call 336-609-8589 or contact us online to schedule a free consultation in our Greensboro, North Carolina, office today.
