Workers compensation insurance - Tasmania
Product information
In any business, workers' safety is paramount. Guild Insurance’s workers' compensation is designed to protect your business and your employees if an incident does occur. Workers' compensation is a legal requirement in TAS, but that doesn’t mean it has to be difficult. We work closely with you to ensure your business is covered while providing exceptional, personalised service to help you along the way.
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Insurance cover for
Medical and hospital expenses
Wages
Rehabilitation services
Features and benefits
- Dedicated help: If a claim is made, your case manager will work with you to ensure there is minimal interruption to your business, as well as ongoing care and support for any employee who is injured.
- Comprehensive Coverage: Covers wages, medical expenses, treatment, and rehabilitation costs for injured workers.
- Legal Cost Coverage: Covers legal costs and expenses incurred with the insurer's consent in defending legal proceedings related to worker injuries.
- Risk Management Support: We provide risk management recommendations to help mitigate the risk of workplace incidents.
- Pay by the month: Flexible payment options to pay by the month with no extra fees.
- Peace of Mind: Allows you to focus on running your business without worrying about potential liabilities.
Workers' compensation insurance is a crucial safety net designed to protect both Employers and Workers in the event of work-related injuries or illnesses.
For Employers:
- Financial protection: covers the costs associated with workplace injuries or illnesses, ensuring that businesses are not financially burdened by these incidents.
- Legal compliance: under Australian law, it is mandatory for employers to have workers' compensation insurance to cover their employees.
For Employees:
- Income support: provides financial assistance to cover lost wages while recovering from a work-related injury or illness.
- Medical expenses: covers medical and hospital costs, as well as other rehabilitation treatments needed for recovery.
- Rehabilitation services: ensures a safe, durable, and timely return to work through various support services.
- Permanent impairment: offers lump sum payments if an employee suffers a permanent impairment.
- Fatalities: In the tragic event of a work-related death, it covers funeral expenses, periodic payments for dependents, and lump sum compensation to support the family.
Additional support:
Workers' compensation also includes other types of support such as education and training, domestic assistance, and access to networks of medical specialists and rehabilitation providers.
Maintaining a safe and healthy workplace is essential for the well-being of both employees and the broader community. Workers' compensation insurance plays a vital role in achieving this goal.
Determining the appropriate workers' compensation cover for your business depends on several factors:
- Single-state operations: if your business operates solely within one state, you need a workers' compensation policy that complies with that state's regulations.
- Multiple state operations: if your business operates in multiple states, you generally need to have a workers' compensation policy that covers each state where your employees work.
However, the specific provisions known as the "State of Connection" rules help determine which state's workers' compensation scheme applies to your employees. These rules consider factors such as where the employee usually works, where they are usually based, and where the employer's principal place of business is located.
The "State of Connection" rules are used to determine the appropriate jurisdiction for workers' compensation coverage when employees work across multiple states. These rules are based on the following factors:
- Where the employee usually works: the primary consideration is the state or territory where the employee usually performs their work.
- Where the employee is usually based: if the usual place of work does not determine the state of connection, the next factor is where the employee is usually based.
- Employer's principal place of business: if the first two factors do not determine the state of connection, the location of the employer's principal place of business is considered.
These rules ensure that employees are covered under the appropriate workers' compensation scheme, even if they work across multiple states.
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Correct Manual Handling in the Workplace
Manual handling means using force or physical exertion to move something, by means such as pushing, pulling, lifting, or carrying. Manual handling takes place continually in an early learning service, such as when lifting or carrying children, furniture, or other equipment.
When not performed appropriately, manual handling can unfortunately lead to serious and long-term injuries for employees. These injuries impact both the employee as well as the early learning service which employs them. Therefore, it’s imperative that both employees and employers understand the risks of manual handling within their profession, and specifically their workplace, and understand how they can reduce those risks and lessen the likelihood of staff being injured.
In all workplaces, manual handling is one of the most common and costly causes of injury.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), manual handling is the most common cause of workplace injuries and has been for some time. Categorised by the ABS as ‘Lifting, pushing, pulling, bending’, these injuries made up 23.6% of injuries during the 2017–2018 financial year. There was next to no change over the next four years, with these injuries making up 23.5% of all injuries during the 2021–2022 financial year.
Employer’s Responsibility
All employers have a responsibility to create a safe workplace for their employees. This safe workplace relates to manual handling risks as well as other potential risks, such as the employee’s emotional wellbeing.
To reduce the likelihood of manual handling injuries within an early learning service, the employer must:
- Identify areas or tasks which may pose a manual handling injury risk.
- Assess the likelihood of those injuries occurring and the possible consequences or impact should they occur.
- Identify and put into place strategies to lessen the likelihood of those injuries occurring.
Manual Handling Injuries
The following information provides a brief description of some common injuries experienced by employees in early learning services due to manual handling:
- Back – bulging discs due to lifting heavy boxes off a shelf.
- Neck/shoulders – a strained neck due to reaching for items while changing a child’s nappy.
- Arms/wrists – elbow pain due to repetitive movement of furniture around the service.
- Hips, knees, and ankles – knee ligament damage caused by lifting a child who has fallen over.
Reducing the Likelihood of Injuries
The Hierarchy of Control is a well-recognised system for reducing exposure to risks and hazards. The controls are presented in order of effectiveness for reducing the risk, with the most effective coming first.
The Hazard Controls are:
- Elimination: Physically removing the hazard. For example, making the manual task of opening a heavy gate automated by using a remote control.
- Substitution: Replacing something hazardous with something less hazardous, such as using smaller boxes instead of large, heavy ones.
- Engineering Controls: Creating a physical change to the workspace to remove people from the hazard, e.g., lowering the sides of a cot to reduce bending.
- Administration: Implementing new policies, additional training, or placing warning notices around the workplace.
- Personal Protective Equipment (PPE): Using protective equipment such as gloves when handling children’s food or changing nappies.
Task Modification
Another way to reduce the likelihood of injuries is modifying tasks to be performed more safely. Examples include:
- Decrease the weight of objects being handled – pull furniture or equipment apart before transport or remove some items from a box before lifting it.
- Use two or more people – encourage staff to seek assistance when lifting heavy or large objects.
- Reduce the frequency of manual handling – while manual handling cannot be eliminated, reducing its occurrence is beneficial.
- Push rather than pull or carry – pushing places less strain on the body, reducing the likelihood of injury.
- Raise work surfaces – raising cot heights can reduce bending when picking up children.
- Alternate tasks – rotating staff responsibilities to avoid excessive repetition of the same manual handling task.
- Induct staff on equipment use – ensure new staff are properly trained in safe equipment use.
In Summary…
Don’t assume that serious injuries won’t happen in your workplace—Guild Insurance has seen many cases where they have. These injuries often lead to extended time off work and require task modifications when employees return.
All staff must take their role in following safe manual handling practices seriously.
Guild Insurance Limited ABN 55 004 538 863, AFS Licence No. 233 791. This article contains information of a general nature only and is not intended to constitute legal advice. Guild Insurance supports your Association through the payment of referral fees for certain products or services you take out with them.
- Early Learning
- Workers Compensation
- Business
- Professional
- Workers Compensation
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