If you’ve recently made changes to your business name and/or structure, there are a few things you need to know about how it affects your worker’s compensation insurance policy.

Being a government regulated insurance, it’s compulsory to have, and if it’s not insured in the correct entity (the one paying the wages), it can cause unwelcome consequences when (a) you make a claim or (b) when your business is investigated by the worker’s comp organisation in your state.

Those consequences, of course, are penalties in the form of fines—with a few other hassles you can avoid.

Three things you can do to avoid penalties in the instance of a claim

 

1/  Keep us in the loop

Firstly, ensure that whoever’s responsible for amendments to your business structure or name contacts your insurer to notify them of the changes.

Doing this not only prevents the risk of penalties, but also saves considerable time—as brokers, we can’t simply change the name on your policy, we have to set up a whole new one.

For example, if you changed the name of your company in June and didn’t tell us about it, then the policy comes up for renewal in August, you’d not be covered for those months—which in itself causes delays—then we also need to spend time setting up the new policy.

Additionally, if you’re a Trust company, we need to know who the Trustee is, along with the relevant ABNs or ACNs for both.

We often hear “My accountant set my trust account up for me.” In most instances, insurance companies don’t see a trust company as a legal entity, so we still need to know who the trustee is.

This will also enable us to set it up accurately, while sparing you the process of repeating the policy renewal process.

2/  Know your state’s legislation on working Directors

Each state in Australia sees working directors differently. In the ACT, if you’re a PTY LTD company, the employee is automatically considered a director of the company.

This means wages are automatically covered, whereas in WA a working Director can decide if they want to insure the Director or not. In this instance, they’ll need to list themselves.

And if you’re unsure, we’ll take care of everything so you can decide whether you want the cover or not.

3/  Be aware of grey areas for contractors

Many Directors don’t realise that if a contractor doesn’t hold their own worker’s comp policy, the company can still be held liable even if the contractor had signed that agreement and something happened to them at your workplace.

If you’ve read this and realised you’re unsure how your worker’s compensation policy is set up, or are keen to talk about other policies you have, we’d love to help. Speak with us directly on 1300 136 339.