South Carolina’s Workers’ Compensation insurance offers disfigurement benefits for employees who will go through the rest of their lives bearing physical evidence of their workplace injury. There are a lot of terrible things that can happen in a work-related accident and many of them won’t keep you from working long-term. Often, people suffer serious injuries and go right on working without reporting them because they don’t think they’re physically serious enough to warrant a claim . However, if your injuries leave you disfigured – if you will have a workplace story to go with your scars for the rest of your life – Workers’ Compensation is designed to compensate you for that.
- What counts as disfigurement? In South Carolina, any workplace injury that results in a visible permanent burn, scar or other disfigurement to your face, neck, head or other part of your body typically visible at work qualifies as a permanent disfigurement.
- How much can you get for a permanent scar? Payments in South Carolina’s Workers’ Compensation program are typically based on two-thirds of your average salary including overtime, bonuses, and tips. The maximum payment for a permanent scar resulting from a workplace injury is 50 weeks.
- How permanent scar payments figure into the bigger picture… If you were scarred in a workplace accident, you might also have been injured badly enough to miss work. In most cases, you will not receive payment for the scar if you are also receiving temporary total disability or permanent total disability payments from Worker’s Compensation.
- Serious burns and scars… There is an exception to the provision that prevents double payment. If you are receiving other payments for temporary or permanent total disability, you can simultaneously receive payments for disfigurement if your disfigurement qualifies as a serious burn or keloid scar – a raised, knobby scar – that creates significant disfigurement.
If you would like to know more about how disfigurement benefits through South Carolina’s Workers’ Compensation insurance program work, please contact the experienced attorneys at George Sink Injury Lawyers . We have offices throughout the state and will be happy to answer any of your Worker’s Compensation questions.
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