Michigan Workers' Compensation Law

What benefits are available upon a work related death?

Question:
An employee was killed on the job. He is married with a small child. Is his wife entitled to anything as far as workers compensation?

Answer:
There are two types of benefits available. The wife is entitled to reimbursement or reasonable expenses incurred for her husband's last sickness, funeral and burial. The funeral and burial expenses are limited to $6,000.00.

The Workers' Disability Compensation Act also provides for 500 weeks (9.6 years) of weekly wage loss benefits to continue to the spouse to the extent that she was dependant upon his income at the time of death. If she did not work and was otherwise "wholly dependant", then she would take all of his wage loss benefits. Alternatively, if she had an income, her earnings need to be added to his income and then a calculation as to the extent of the dependency needs to be made.

Recent Laws to Reduce Insurance Costs Affect Claims

A recent article written by Patrick Springer, from "The Forum" discusses a study from the Review of Economic and Statistics which is edited by Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. The report concludes that changes to State laws made in the 1990's aimed at reducing workers' compensation costs appear to have transfered claims from workers compensation carriers to the Social Security Administration and common group health insurance carriers.

The article can be found here: http://www.in-forum.com/articles/index.cfm?id=74877§ion=news