Orange County Workplace Brain Injury Attorney

What Compensation Can I Recover?

Due to the severely debilitating nature of TBIs, those who are afflicted are almost always unable to return to work after their accident. Under California law, those who suffer TBIs as a result of workplace accidents can seek disability benefits under their employer’s workers’ compensation insurance. These benefits can cover a wide range of losses related to on-the-job injuries and will vary in amount depending on the extent of a person’s injuries.

Compensation can be awarded for the following:

• Medical expenses
• Lost income
• Pain and suffering

Disability Insurance for Workers with Brain Injuries

Most brain injuries result in permanent injuries and symptoms, as mentioned. You could be limited in your ability to hold gainful employment for the rest of your life because of one workplace accident. If you suffered a brain injury at work, you should consider workers’ compensation benefits and disability benefits that might become available to you later.

Workers’ compensation benefits will only last so long before they expire, or your benefits reach a cap. At that point, you might be able to utilize disability insurance (DI) benefits that help you remain financially stable for years to come.

A few things to consider about disability insurance for work-related brain injuries:

• In most cases, a claimant cannot receive benefits from disability insurance and workers’ compensation at the same time. Usually, workers’ compensation benefits are used up before moving to disability insurance, but not always.
• The physician who has diagnosed your brain injury can also help determine if it was related to your workplace accident. Be sure to ask them to note in your medical records if they think this causation exists.
• Disability insurance can be provided by the same insurance company that provides your workers’ compensation coverage and benefits. Or you might end up using a separate disability insurance coverage unrelated to that company, such as those provided through the Social Security Administration (SSA).
• DI benefits only last 52 weeks or one year unless your brain injury causes a predictably permanent disability like it probably will. Medical evidence of your disability can extend DI benefits to up to 10 years, or until you reach the age of retirement.
• If you receive Social Security Disability (SSD) benefits until you are 65, you can then qualify for Social Security retirement benefits to continue getting much-needed financial support.

Our attorneys focus on the workers’ compensation aspects of brain injury claims, but it is important that you understand how disability insurance might become relevant to your claim, too. We would be happy to help you however we can.