Employment Injury Benefit

Employment Injury Benefit is a payment to insured persons who are incapable of work because of an injury sustained as a result of an accident occurring on the job, or certain types of diseases contracted on the job. Benefits included under Employment Injury are Disablement, Constant Attendance, Medical Expenses, Injury, Funeral and Death.

Injury Benefit is paid up to a maximum period of 52 weeks from the date of incapacity, as long as the incapacity exists. After that period, if the incapacity continues a medical doctor must re-assess the disability to determine eligibility for the Disablement Benefit.

 The rate of Injury Benefit is 70% of average weekly insurable earnings.

Important steps in claiming Employment Injury Benefit:

• Report the accident to your  employer or Supervisor immediately
• Employers are required to investigate the circumstances of an alleged accident and submit a written report to the Board as soon as possible
• Visit your doctor immediately, or go  to the hospital. Ask the doctor to certify your injury on the Employment Injury Form
• Complete and sign the claim form and submit same to the National Insurance Board as soon as possible
• Provide an original copy of all receipts 

Medical Expenses - A person qualifies for a refund of prescribed expenses reasonably incurred in the treatment of an employment injury or a prescribed disease.

What payments are made?

• Medical, surgical, dental and hospital treatment, skilled nursing services and the supply of medicines
• The supply of fittings, maintenance, repair and renewal of artificial limbs, dentures, spectacles and other apparatus and appliances
• The cost of traveling for the purpose of obtaining any of the above
• Fees for airfares, costs of hospitalization and operations undertaken abroad will be paid only if prior approval was received from the National Insurance Board. If this is not done,   the claim will be restricted to E.C $1000

When claiming Medical Expenses all original receipts for medication, doctor’s fees, travelling, hospitalization etc, must be submitted with your claim. Details of the nature of treatment which was received must be indicated on the form.

The Board may pay directly to a Medical Practitioner or Institution instead of refunding the insured person.

Disablement Benefit is paid to a person who has exhausted his or her entitlement to Injury benefits and suffers from a loss of physical or mental faculty which amounts to not less than 1%.

The benefit may be paid as a Pension or a Grant, depending on the Doctor’s assessment of the degree of disablement. Thirty percent (30%) or more is equivalent to a Pension and less than 30% is equivalent to a Grant.

The rate of benefit is 70% of the average weekly insurable earning times the percentage degree of disablement.

Constant Attendance Benefit - where a Disablement Benefit is paid and the degree of disablement is 100% and the Director is satisfied that as a result of the relevant loss of faculty the beneficiary requires the constant attendance of another person, the rate of disablement pension shall be increased by 50%. 

No such increase shall be payable in respect to a period for which the beneficiary is receiving medical treatment as an in-patient in a hospital or in a similar institution.