A Florida lawmaker introduced a new piece of legislation on Tuesday that could dramatically change how businesses handle employee injuries.
H.B. 1069, if passed, would give employers in the state the option to develop their own programs to compensate employees for occupational injuries, offering an alternative to the traditional workers’ compensation system.
Businesses would have two choices under the proposed law: continue using the existing workers’ compensation system or become a “qualified compensation alternative employer.” To opt for the alternative, companies would be required to establish a written plan, demonstrating their financial ability to provide benefits. These benefits must include medical coverage, indemnity payments, and death benefits.
The bill stipulates the key requirements for alternative compensation plans. For a claim to be valid, the plans would mandate that the injury or death is primarily caused by work performed within the scope of employment. Moreover, the bill would require: “must provide benefits to an employee otherwise eligible for occupational injury benefits if the employee reports an accident or a known exposure to an occupational disease within three days.” The legislation dictates that alternative benefit programs must define an occupational sickness as something characteristic of a particular trade, occupation, process, or type of work.
Furthermore, the bill states that these plans are required to define occupational diseases in a way that “does not include ordinary diseases of life to which the general public is exposed.”
