Hassle-Free Health Coverage: Occupational Diseases

Since many occupational diseases -- such as asbestosis, silicosis and diseases associated with radiation exposure -- are slow to develop, several administrative problems can result:

- a worker may be employed by several employers and be under a constant disease exposure,

- the disablement may take place sometime after the last injurious exposure, or

- due to the time period involved, several different carriers may cover workers' comp for the same employer.

Because workers' comp only provides on-the-job coverage, it does not provide coverage after work hours, or on weekends, holidays or vacations.

Traditionally, other forms of health insurance have provided non-occupational coverage only, for injuries and diseases which are not work-related. Many of these policies contain a workers' comp exclusion. Coverage is specifically excluded for losses which are covered by workers' comp laws, disability benefit laws or similar laws.

Many people have both occupational and nonoccupational coverage because employers frequently provide or make group health insurance available. Others purchase individual or family plans of health insurance for non-occupational exposures. But this division of coverage means that separate insurance policies and separate insurance carriers are involved, that there is a need to determine whether each claim is work-related or not, and that some gaps in coverage or duplications of coverage may exist.