Average Weekly Wage Is Used To Determine How Much You Get Paid In Workers' Comp Benefits скачать в хорошем качестве

Average Weekly Wage Is Used To Determine How Much You Get Paid In Workers' Comp Benefits

If you are going to receive monetary benefits following a work injury, there has to be a method for calculating what you are owed. In Texas, all of these calculations begin with determining your average weekly wage. Average Weekly Wage is what it sounds like it is supposed to be. It is an average of the wages you have been earning at work. The general rule is that the adjuster is supposed to take all of your wages earned for 13 weeks prior to your work injury, add them up, and divide by 13. That gives us your average weekly earnings. All wages paid during that 13 week period count. This can include bonuses, sales commissions, vehicle allowances, uniforms, dry cleaning or any other monetary value you get paid to work at the job. I’ve even seen flight privileges included for flight attendants and lodging included for oil field workers. Here's a tip for you that is often overlooked: If your employer provides health insurance, and then sometime after you get hurt the employer stops paying for your health insurance, then the value of that health insurance premium gets added into your average weekly wage and your workers’ comp benefits increase. Average weekly wage is usually pretty straightforward unless you haven’t been on the job for 13 weeks prior to your injury. At that point, it becomes arguable. In this situation, the employer is supposed to provide the wages of a same or similar employee who worked for those 13 weeks. You can imagine the games that get played when this happens. What if you have worked there for 10 years with raises and your experience generates big commissions but your employer gets the wages of someone who has only worked there for a 9 months and hasn’t had a raise yet? That’s when you have to start fighting over your average weekly wage. There is another method to consider though. It’s called the fair, just and reasonable method. This is when you make a practical judgment about average weekly wage. For instance, if you have been on the job for 12 weeks, you can agree with the insurance company to take your wages and divide by 12 to get a fair average. This comes in handy when construction workers get rained out of a job for a week during the 13 weeks before an injury. If you want to maximize your benefits, you have to pay attention to your average weekly wage. When this becomes a battle, we want to be your law firm.