Workers Compensation Lawyers

New Rules Affecting Illinois Workers' Compensation Lawyers
By Emily Gleason

What is your hand worth? According to the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission, the maximum value of a hand lost at work (for a worker who makes the average Illinois annual salary of $42,754.40) is $168,551, whereas that same hand would be worth $156,218 in Iowa and $143,885 in Nebraska.

In Illinois workers' compensation law, the value of human body parts is determined by an actuarial analysis of probabilities and future values of injuries. The values are continually adjusted to keep up with inflation and changes in the economy. The Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission uses the fixed values of body parts in order to strike a fair balance between compensating workers without driving insurance companies into financial ruin.

Workers’ Compensation Overview

Workers’ compensation is one of the first examples of tort reform enacted in the United States. Before workers’ compensation law, people hurt at work were faced with two unpleasant alternatives: (1) they could either file lawsuits against their employers or (2) they could suck it up and pay for their own injuries.

Now, employers in every state but Texas are required to hold workers’ compensation insurance. When people are injured at work, it is almost as easy to file claims within their states’ workers’ compensation systems, as it is to file insurance claims after car accidents.

In order to ensure that injured workers, employers and insurance companies are all treated fairly, the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission continually makes changes to the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Act.

Below is an overview of the most recent set of changes to the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Act, which took place in July of 2005.

Fraud Statute Established