Workers Compensation Coverage for International Workers (Historic post)
This was initially posted in Feb. 2023 and is copied here from Wix Forums for historical purposes.
Keith Scheffel Posted Feb. 23, 2023:
Peter Guinther, HR Administrator, for BIC US World Missions reached out with a question that he gave me permission to push out via the Forum to get input from other MASP members who have international workers. Peter noted the following:
"BIC U.S. World Missions is considering switching our Workers Compensation coverage for our international missionaries from the Hartford to Brotherhood Mutual. The coverage seems to be very expensive for very little practical use, other than keeping legally compliant."
If you're willing to share, I know Peter (and I'm assuming others, too,) would be interested in learning what other Member organizations are doing to provide Workers Compensation coverage for their international missionaries. If you're open to sharing what your organization does or you have additional comments or questions related to this topic, please share via a comment to this post. Thanks!
Comment from E. Nathan Zimmerman on 3/1/23:
Peter, FEC provides our WC coverage for international workers via Brotherhood Mutual. There's a different code that we use for them vs our domestic workers, but I'm not sure that actually addresses the "very expensive for very little practical use".
Response from Peter Guinther - Thank you Nate for sharing this. Our domestic workers will be on a different policy as well. Perhaps I need to check further with Brotherhood Mutual whether there is yet another option they could offer for our international workers.
Comment from Conrad Martin on 3/6/23:
I guess I assumed our MASP medical insurance covered our workers whether or not they incurred medical expenses from their work. As for wages lost during this time, I guess I also assumed each agency would have their own policies on this.
Response from Peter Guinther - Thank you Conrad for sharing your response. Your thoughts are very much in line with ours, especially since Workers' Compensation policies tend to only compensate at a rate of 2/3rds of lost wages, which would make a missionary's compensation fairly small if they go on WC, because they are already living a simple lifestyle with needs based compensation. My greatest hesitancy to going this direction is whether this meets the legal PA and federal requirements for WC coverage.