Kansas Workers' Compensation: What you need to know

Virtually all employers in Kansas must provide workers' compensation insurance coverage for their employees. Employers are covered if their gross annual payroll is $20,000 or more. Public employees are covered, as are community service workers, members of the Civil Air Patrol, and volunteer peace officers, ambulance workers, and firefighters. Volunteers are treated as employees of the governmental entities that they serve.

A few categories of employment are specifically exempted from coverage:

• Agricultural workers in the private sector

• Construction design professionals (but only for injuries on the construction site)

• Real estate sales personnel whose primary income is from commissions and who are not considered employees for tax purposes

• Firefighters who are members of a firefighter's relief association and for whom a letter of exception is on file with the director of workers' compensation

• Individual employers, self-employed persons, and limited general partners, unless they elect coverage

Employers that are not obligated to provide coverage may elect to be covered under the workers' compensation law, thereby gaining immunity from other legal actions. Subcontractors are responsible for insuring their own employees (KS Stat. Sec. 44-501 et seq.).

"No-fault" system. Workers' compensation is a "no-fault" system. Employees receive compensation without having to prove that the employer was at fault for the injury. They need only show that the injury arose "out of and in the course of employment." This no-fault aspect distinguishes workers' compensation from ordinary "tort" law, which provides for the compensation of injured people in most other circumstances. Under tort law, a person ...