Home›For employers›When an employee is injured

Your duties when an employee is injured

By Richard Vaughn CPCU, ARM, AIS. Reviewed November 8, 2026. Richard is an insurance professional, not an attorney. This page explains the law; it is not legal advice.

Before anyone is hurt

Two notices are required of every employer with employees, and both matter when a claim comes.

Post the notice. The Notice to Employees — Injuries Caused by Work (DWC-7) must be displayed where employees gather and can read it during the workday. It names your insurer or states that you are self-insured, says who handles claims, and explains where to get emergency care, what is covered, the right to medical care and to choose and change the treating physician, the benefits, who takes injury reports, the time limits for reporting, the protection against discrimination and how to reach the Information and Assistance officer (Labor Code §3550(a), (d); 8 CCR §9881). Failing to post it is a misdemeanor and is prima facie evidence that you are uninsured (Labor Code §3550(b)), and an employee injured while it is not posted may treat with their own doctor (Labor Code §3550(e)). Your insurer supplies the form.

Give new hires the written notice. At the time of hire or by the end of the first pay period, every new employee must receive a written notice with the same information plus how to get care for a work injury, the role of the primary treating physician, and the optional form for predesignating a personal physician (Labor Code §3551; 8 CCR §9880). Keep a signed acknowledgment in the personnel file; the predesignation form in it is what decides who treats the employee if they are hurt.

Day one: the injury

Get care first. In an emergency, call 911 or send the employee to the nearest emergency room and tell the provider it is a work injury. Otherwise send the employee to the clinic or physician you have arranged through your medical provider network, unless the employee predesignated a personal physician. You must tell the employee the MPN exists, that they may change physicians within it after the first visit, and how to find the list (Labor Code §4616.3(b)).

Give the claim form. Within one working day of learning of an injury that causes lost time beyond the shift or requires medical treatment beyond first aid, give or mail the employee the Workers' Compensation Claim Form (DWC-1) and Notice of Potential Eligibility (Labor Code §5401(a)). The form and the notice are one document, in English and Spanish. Write the date you provided it. If the employee dies, the form goes to the dependents.

Notify your claims administrator the same day. The clock for temporary disability and for the claim decision starts with the employer's knowledge, not the insurer's, so delay in telling the adjuster shortens their time without extending yours.

The first week

Return the dated copy. When the employee files the completed form with you, in person or by mail, the claim is filed (Labor Code §5401(c)). You complete the employer section, give the employee a dated copy, and send one to your claims administrator. That dated copy is the employee's proof of filing and your proof of handling it.

Authorize treatment within one working day of the filing. You must authorize all treatment for the alleged injury, consistent with the treatment guidelines, within one working day after the claim form is filed, and keep authorizing it until the claim is accepted or denied, up to $10,000 (Labor Code §5402(c)). Authorizing treatment is not an admission that the claim is valid (Labor Code §5402(d)). In practice the claims administrator does this; your job is to make sure it happens.

File Form 5020 within five days. Every injury or illness that causes lost time beyond the date of injury or needs treatment beyond first aid must be reported on the Employer's Report of Occupational Injury or Illness, filed with your insurer within five days of your knowledge of it (Labor Code §6409.1(a); 8 CCR §14001). The report must include the employee's Social Security number. If the employee later dies of the injury, an amended report is due within five days.

Report serious injuries to Cal/OSHA immediately. A serious injury or illness, or a death, must be reported immediately to the Division of Occupational Safety and Health by telephone or its online system, in addition to the Form 5020; the civil penalty for failing to report starts at $5,000 (Labor Code §6409.1(b)). "Serious" means inpatient hospitalization for anything other than observation or diagnostic testing, an amputation, the loss of an eye, or serious permanent disfigurement; it does not include a vehicle accident on a public road outside a construction zone (Labor Code §6302(h)).

The 90 days after

The claims administrator has 90 days from the date the claim form was filed to accept or deny the claim; if it does neither, the injury is presumed compensable (Labor Code §5402(b)). During that window your role is to answer the adjuster's questions promptly, provide records, and manage the return to work. If the treating doctor releases the employee to modified duty, offering work within the restrictions stops temporary disability from your experience, keeps the employee attached to the job, and, if the offer meets the statutory terms, affects the permanent disability and voucher obligations later. The offer should be in writing, describe the duties and the restrictions they fit, and be within the employee's abilities as the doctor wrote them; an employee cannot be required to work outside the restrictions.

What you may not do

Discharging, threatening to discharge, or in any way discriminating against an employee because they filed or made known an intention to file a claim, or because they were injured, is unlawful (Labor Code §132a). The remedy is reinstatement, reimbursement of lost wages and benefits, and an increase in the employee's compensation award, plus a misdemeanor. The same section protects employees who testify in another worker's case. Discipline for conduct unrelated to the claim remains available on the same terms as for any employee, and documenting the conduct contemporaneously is what distinguishes the two.

Keeping the file

Keep, for each injury: the DWC-1 with both sections completed and the date you provided it; the Form 5020 and proof of filing; the wage statement; witness statements; the modified-duty offer and the employee's response; and all correspondence with the claims administrator. Keep the posted notice current when you change insurers, and keep the signed new-hire acknowledgments with the personnel files. The file is what protects you at a hearing and at the premium audit, where the same claim shows up as a loss on your experience modification three years later.

Questions people ask

Richard Vaughn CPCU, ARM, AIS

Richard Vaughn spent 35 years in commercial property and casualty insurance, most of it in workers' compensation: running a self-insured group, auditing premiums, and implementing claims systems for carriers and third-party administrators. He is not an attorney. dickvaughn.com