NC Industrial Commission Form 18: Filing Steps and Deadlines

The NC Industrial Commission Form 18 is the Notice of Accident you file to open a workers’ compensation claim after a job injury or occupational disease in North Carolina. Download the current version from the Commission’s forms page at ic.nc.gov, complete it with your personal, employer, and injury details, and send signed copies to both the Industrial Commission and your employer.¹ The form is one page. Getting the details right the first time keeps your medical treatment and wage benefits from stalling.

What to Gather Before You Start

Pull these items together before you open the form:

Your full legal name, Social Security number, date of birth, home address, phone, and email.
Your employer’s legal business name, physical address, and phone number. If you know the workers’ compensation insurance carrier and policy number, have those too; if you don’t, leave those fields blank and the Commission will track them down.
The exact date and time of the accident, the city and county where it happened, every body part affected, and the nature of the injury (fracture, strain, burn, and so on).
Your occupation at the time of injury, the nature of your employer’s business, your weekly wage, hours worked per day, and days worked per week.
Whether you received medical treatment and from whom.
The names of anyone who witnessed the accident.²

How to Complete Each Section

The three boxes at the top of the form — IC File #, Employer Code #, and Carrier Code # — are for Commission use. Leave them blank.

In the employee and employer blocks, use names and addresses exactly as they appear on your pay stubs or W-2. Your Social Security number is how the Commission identifies your file, so check it twice.

The injury section is where most claims run into trouble. Under “nature of injury,” be specific. Write “lumbar disc herniation” or “second-degree burn, left forearm” rather than “back injury” or “burn.” List every body part affected, including ones you think will heal on their own. If a condition turns out to be related to the accident but isn’t on your Form 18, you can face a dispute later about whether it’s covered.

In the field describing how the injury occurred, write a short factual account of the physical event. Something like: “I was carrying a 50-pound box up the warehouse stairs, slipped on a wet step, and fell eight feet to the concrete floor, landing on my back and right shoulder.” Stick to the mechanics of what happened. Leave out opinions about fault or blame. North Carolina workers’ compensation is a no-fault system.

Fill in your weekly wage, hours per day, and days per week accurately. These figures feed directly into the calculation of any disability benefits you receive.

Sign and date the form at the bottom. If you are physically unable to sign, a family member, attorney, or other representative can sign on your behalf.²

Where to Send Form 18

Prepare three signed copies: one for the Industrial Commission, one for your employer, and one for your own records.²

Filing With the Industrial Commission

The Commission accepts Form 18 three ways:

Through the Electronic Document Filing Portal at ic.nc.gov. You can file this way even if you don’t yet have an IC file number.³
By email to forms@ic.nc.gov.
By mail to NCIC – Claims Section, 1235 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, NC 27699-1235.²

If you mail the form, use certified mail or a tracked delivery service so you can prove the Commission received it. Electronic filing is faster and removes the risk of lost paperwork.

Giving a Copy to Your Employer

Filing with the Commission does not satisfy your separate obligation to notify your employer. Hand your employer a signed copy of Form 18 directly, and get a dated signature from a supervisor or HR representative; alternatively, send it by certified mail. Under G.S. 97-23, notice may be given personally to the employer or sent by registered or certified mail to the employer’s last known address.⁴

Deadlines That Can End Your Claim

Two separate deadlines apply, and confusing them is a common mistake.

30-Day Written Notice to the Employer

You must give your employer written notice of the accident within 30 days. Miss that window and you lose the right to any compensation that accrued before notice was given, and you can lose the entire claim unless you show a reasonable excuse and prove the employer wasn’t prejudiced by the delay. The automatic exceptions are narrow: the employer, a manager, or a supervisor already knew about the accident, or you were physically or mentally unable to give notice.⁵

The statute tells you to give notice “immediately on the occurrence of an accident, or as soon thereafter as practicable.” Thirty days is the outer limit, not the goal.

Two-Year Filing With the Commission

Your Form 18 must be filed with the Industrial Commission within two years of the accident date, or your claim is permanently barred. The two-year clock can also run from the date of the last medical payment if no other compensation was paid.⁶

For occupational diseases, which develop gradually from exposures like asbestos, chemicals, or repetitive motion, the two years runs from the date of disability or disablement rather than from any single accident date. For radiation injuries, the clock starts when you first became unable to work from the exposure and either knew or should have known the condition was work-related.⁷

What Happens After You File

Once the Commission processes your Form 18, it mails you an acknowledgement letter with your assigned IC file number. Use that number on every piece of correspondence from then on. The Commission also sends a copy of the acknowledgement to your employer or its insurance carrier, asking the carrier to contact you about whether it will pay benefits voluntarily.²

Your employer is independently required to file Form 19 (Employer’s Report of Employee’s Injury) with the Commission if you missed more than one day of work or your medical bills exceed $4,000. The employer’s Form 19 does not replace your Form 18, and your Form 18 does not replace the employer’s Form 19. Both have to be filed.

From there the case takes one of two paths. If the carrier accepts the claim, it begins paying medical bills, and, if you are out of work beyond seven days, disability benefits. If the carrier denies the claim, it files a Form 61 with the Commission that must include a detailed statement of the grounds for denial. Vague or unspecified grounds can limit the defenses the carrier raises later.⁸

If Your Claim Is Denied

A denial isn’t the end. File a Form 33 (Request for Hearing) with the Commission to contest it. Once the Commission receives your Form 33, it automatically orders the case to a mediated settlement conference, a structured negotiation session with a neutral mediator.⁹

If mediation doesn’t resolve things, the case goes to a hearing before a deputy commissioner, who acts as a trial-level judge. You can appeal that decision to the Full Commission and, if necessary, to the North Carolina Court of Appeals. Most cases settle at mediation. Clean documentation starting from Form 18 makes every step after it easier.

If you have questions about your file number or the status of your Form 18, call the Commission at 919-807-2501 or toll-free at 800-688-8349. The physical office is at 430 North Salisbury Street in Raleigh; general correspondence goes to 1240 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, NC 27699-1240, which is a different address from the Claims Section used for Form 18 itself.¹⁰

1
North Carolina Industrial Commission. NC Industrial Commission Forms
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North Carolina Industrial Commission. Form 18 – Notice of Accident to Employer
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North Carolina Industrial Commission. N.C. Industrial Commission Home Page
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North Carolina Industrial Commission. North Carolina General Statute 97-23 – What Notice Is to Contain
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North Carolina General Assembly. North Carolina General Statutes 97-22 – Notice of Accident to Employer
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North Carolina Industrial Commission. North Carolina General Statute 97-24 – Right to Compensation Barred After Two Years
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North Carolina Industrial Commission. North Carolina General Statute 97-58 – Time Limit for Filing Claims
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North Carolina Industrial Commission. Form 61 – Denial of Workers’ Compensation Claim
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North Carolina Industrial Commission. NCIC Rules for Mediated Settlement and Neutral Evaluation Conferences
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North Carolina Industrial Commission. NC Industrial Commission Contact Information