› Flat Chat Strata Forum › Living in strata › Living in Victoria strata › Do we need Workers Comp Insurance? › Current Page
A lot of very bad advice here. It is true that an OC is not automatically considered an employer as a consequence of ‘being in business’. It is also true that “A contractor is not employing someone” – but only if you can establish that the person doing the work really is a contractor, and that can be very difficult to determine. For instance, many people laying carpet are actually engaged as ‘casual contractors’ but, in the event of an accident, would probably be considered an employee of the company that you signed the carpeting contract with (because that’s what they do for a living, they work almost entirely for the one business, they don’t provide their own tools or transport, they do get training, they don’t advertise their own services, etc, etc). But the carpet company doesn’t want to pay WC insurance, so they have decided that their employees are actually self-employed sole traders and they don’t need a policy to cover them. If they have an accident and they discover they aren’t covered like they thought they were, they will come looking to the OC for compensation, and they might succeed. The best protection is a properly checked subcontractor’s statement, but are you sure that your managing agent is getting one for every subcontractor, that it’s up to date, and that it has been checked for gross stupidities that might invalidate it? Do you know that the young kid who sometimes helps the gardener put the bins away for a few dollars is covered by the gardener’s WC policy, or that the gardener doesn’t have a policy because he considers himself a sole trader who doesn’t need one? Not really an issue when the kid drops a bin on his foot – a big issue when he steps out in front of the garbage truck.
Even a claim that cannot succeed (such as some tradespeople who make a career out of having an accident the first day on the job) can tie up the OC in a massive amount of time, trouble and money defending a case.
It’s insurance – it covers the times when someone stuffs up, makes a mistake, accidentaly enters into an employer situation, and suddenly becomes liable. Declare wages paid as zero and the premium will be nominal.