What is an accident at work?
An accident is a physical or mental injury following an incident or exposure. The incident or exposure has to be sudden or last no more than 5 days.
An accident can be recognised as an industrial injury if the injury occurred due to your work or working conditions.
In other words, there has to be causality between your work and the cause of the injury.
If you accidentally get injured in the workplace, the injury is not necessarily caused by your work. Example: You get up from a chair and get a prolapsed disc.
How we examine an accident at work
Before we can assess if you have had an accident at work, we need the following:
- Your employer’s signature that the incident or exposure occurred as well as any additional information
- Information about your employer’s insurance company
- A medical certificate describing the injury you have sustained due to the incident or exposure
We may ask you to send us more information about the incident or exposure.
Sometimes we will ask our medical consultant if there is causation between the injury and the incident or exposure.
We will not examine if you or your employer might have done something to avoid the incident happening.