Workers' compensation

Workers' compensation or workers' comp is a form of insurance providing wage replacement and medical benefits to employees injured in the course of employment in exchange for mandatory relinquishment of the employee's right to sue their employer for the tort of negligence.

The trade-off between assured, limited coverage and lack of recourse outside the worker compensation system is known as "the compensation bargain.” One of the problems that the compensation bargain solved is the problem of employers becoming insolvent as a result of high damage awards. The system of collective liability was created to prevent that and thus to ensure security of compensation to the workers.

While plans differ among jurisdictions, provision can be made for weekly payments in place of wages (functioning in this case as a form of disability insurance), compensation for economic loss (past and future), reimbursement or payment of medical and like expenses (functioning in this case as a form of health insurance), and benefits payable to the dependents of workers killed during employment.

General damage for pain and suffering and punitive damages for employer negligence are generally not available in workers' compensation plans, and negligence is generally not an issue in the case.

Laws regarding workers compensation vary, but the Workers' Accident Insurance system put into place by Prussian Chancellor Otto von Bismarck in 1884 with the start of Workers' Accident Laws is often cited as a model for the rest of Europe and, later, the United States. After the early Prussian experiments, the development of compensation laws around the world was in important respects the result of transnational networks among policymakers and social scientists. Thus while different countries have their own unique history of workers' compensation, compensation laws developed around the world as a global phenomenon, with each country's deliberation on compensation laws being informed by deliberation in other countries.

Workers' compensation statutes are intended to eliminate the need for litigation and the limitations of common law remedies by having employees give up the potential for pain- and suffering-related awards in exchange for not being required to prove tort (legal fault) on the part of their employer. The laws provide employees with monetary awards to cover loss of wages directly related to the accident as well as to compensate for permanent physical impairments and medical expenses.

The laws also provide benefits for dependents of those workers who are killed in work-related accidents or illnesses. Some laws also protect employers and fellow workers by limiting the amount an injured employee can recover from an employer and by eliminating the liability of co-workers in most accidents. In the United States, state statutes establish this framework for most types of employment, while federal statutes are limited to federal employees or to workers employed in some significant aspect of interstate commerce.

The exclusive remedy provision states that workers' compensation is the sole remedy available to injured workers, thus preventing employees from also making tort liability claims against their employers.