How to Insure Your Income: 24-Hour Coverage

Workers' comp provides medical and disability benefits for occupational injuries or diseases -- accidental injuries that occur at work or occupational diseases that are contracted on the job. It does not provide coverage after work hours or on weekends, holidays or vacations.

Most people have both occupational and non-occupational health coverage -- because employers usually provide or make available group health insurance, separate of workers' comp. But this division of coverage means that separate insurance policies and separate insurance carriers are involved, so there is a need to determine whether each claim is work-related or not, and some gaps in coverage or duplications of coverage may exist.

The goal of 24-hour coverage is to blend occupational and non-occupational coverage into a single coverage package, or at least provide a single delivery system or administrative system. Various proposals accomplish this goal to different degrees.

In these plans, 24-hour disability coverage is offered in a single policy that includes limited medical benefits. Disability benefits are provided for all of an employee's injuries or diseases, whether work-related or not, but medical benefits are provided only for work-related injuries and diseases. Thus, the disability coverage is provided on a 24-hour basis, while the medical coverage is occupational only. In this case, we find broad accident coverage, but limited coverage for diseases.

Universal 24-hour coverage is a package that provides the most complete combination of 24-hour occupational and non-occupational coverage. It includes medical and disability coverage for both accidents and diseases on a 24-hour basis.