NH Workers’ Comp Laws: Eligibility, Wage Benefits & Appeals

New Hampshire workers’ compensation laws require almost every employer in the state to carry no-fault insurance that pays your medical bills and a portion of your lost wages if you get hurt on the job. You do not have to prove your employer did anything wrong. In exchange, you generally cannot sue your employer for negligence. The system runs under RSA Chapter 281-A and is administered by the New Hampshire Department of Labor.

Who Is Covered

Any employer with one or more employees on the payroll must carry a policy or qualify as self-insured.¹ Full-time, part-time, and seasonal workers all count.

A few gaps exist. Sole proprietors, partners, and self-employed people are not required to cover themselves, though they can opt in. A corporation or LLC with three or fewer executive officers or members and no other employees can skip coverage. Add a fourth officer or hire anyone else, and coverage becomes mandatory for everyone.²

Employee or Independent Contractor

New Hampshire presumes you are an employee unless you meet a seven-part test under RSA 281-A:2, VI(b).³ To qualify as an independent contractor, a worker must hold a federal EIN or SSN, control how and when the work gets done, hire and supervise their own helpers, hold themselves out as an independent business, bear responsibility for satisfactory completion, and remain free to take on other clients. Failing any single factor pushes the classification back to employee.

What Happens if the Employer Has No Coverage

An uninsured employer faces a civil penalty of up to $2,500, plus up to $100 per employee for every day of noncompliance, backdated up to a year. Anyone who controls payroll decisions and knowingly skips coverage can be personally liable. Willfully going without coverage is a class B felony.⁴

What Counts as a Work Injury

RSA 281-A:2, XI defines a compensable injury as an accidental injury or occupational disease that arises out of and in the course of employment.³ Sudden accidents count. So do conditions that build up over time from repetitive motion or toxic exposure. If your work aggravates or accelerates a pre-existing condition, the aggravation itself is compensable.

Several categories are excluded. Mental stress without a physical manifestation is not covered, except for emergency responders and public safety workers who can claim benefits for acute stress disorder and PTSD. Mental injuries tied to good-faith discipline, performance reviews, layoffs, demotions, or terminations are not compensable. Neither are injuries from voluntary recreational activities, unless your employer made participation a condition of the job, a promotion, or continued employment.³ Intentional self-injury and intentional harm to others are also outside the system.

Deadlines to Report and File

You have two years from the date of injury to notify your employer. For a condition that develops gradually, the clock starts when you know or should reasonably know the condition is work-related.⁵ Do not wait. Medical records become harder to tie back to work as time passes, and witnesses forget.

A formal claim for disability, rehabilitation, medical benefits, or death benefits must be filed within three years of the injury date, or three years from when you knew or should have known that a gradual condition was work-related.⁵

Once your employer learns of an injury that requires a physician visit, the employer has five days to file an Employer’s First Report of Injury (Form 8WC) with the Labor Commissioner and send a copy to the insurance carrier.⁶ If the injury causes four or more days of disability, a Supplemental Report (Form 13 WCA) must follow within ten days. The Department of Labor does not forward filings to insurers, so if your employer misses that step, the claim can stall before it starts.

Medical Care and Your Choice of Doctor

Your employer’s insurer must pay for all reasonable and necessary medical treatment related to your injury for as long as the injury requires it. That includes surgery, hospital care, prescriptions, nursing, and assistive devices.⁷ Unlike some states, New Hampshire lets you pick your own doctor.

How Wage Replacement Is Calculated

If your injury keeps you out of work, you receive temporary disability payments at 60 percent of your average weekly wage. The average weekly wage is based on up to 52 weeks of pre-injury earnings, using whichever period between 26 and 52 weeks produces the most favorable result for you.

Temporary Total Disability

Temporary total disability applies when you cannot work at all. There is a three-day waiting period before payments start. If your disability reaches 14 days, the insurer goes back and pays those first three days. If you return to light-duty work within five days of the injury, the waiting period is waived.⁸

Temporary Partial Disability

If you can work but earn less than before because of your restrictions, temporary partial disability pays 60 percent of the difference between your pre-injury wage and what you can currently earn. Payments continue until you reach maximum medical improvement. The same three-day waiting period and 14-day retroactive rule apply.⁸

Vocational Rehabilitation

If your injury keeps you from returning to your previous job, you may qualify for vocational rehabilitation under RSA 281-A:25, which can include retraining, education, and job placement assistance.

Permanent Impairment Awards

Once you reach maximum medical improvement, a doctor evaluates whether you have any lasting loss of function. Permanent impairment is paid on a statutory schedule that assigns a fixed number of weeks of compensation to each body part, at the same weekly rate used for temporary disability.⁹ Key scheduled losses:

Arm: 210 weeks
Hand: 189 weeks
Leg: 140 weeks
Foot: 98 weeks
Both eyes: 300 weeks
One eye: 84 weeks
Thumb: 76 weeks
Index finger: 47 weeks
Binaural hearing: 123 weeks

Partial losses receive a proportional award. Losing a fingertip pays half the value of the full digit, and losing less than one phalanx pays one quarter. An amputation at or above the elbow or knee counts as the full arm or leg; below that point, it counts as a hand or foot.⁹ Impairment awards come on top of any temporary disability you already received.

Death and Survivor Benefits

When a worker dies from a job-related injury or illness, the employer pays burial expenses up to $10,000.¹⁰ A surviving spouse and dependent children receive ongoing weekly payments, with the split set by the Labor Commissioner.

A dependent child’s benefits continue until age 18, or 25 if the child is enrolled full-time at an accredited school. A physically or mentally incapacitated child continues to receive benefits for as long as the incapacity lasts. If a surviving spouse without dependent children remarries, compensation stops. If a spouse with dependent children remarries, the remaining balance shifts to the children’s custodial parent or guardian.¹⁰ A death benefits claim must still be filed within three years of the worker’s death.⁵

How the Insurer Must Respond

After the insurer receives notice of a lost-time claim, it has 21 days to investigate and issue either a Memo of Payment or a Notice of Denial. For medical-only claims, the insurer has 30 days from receiving the bill to pay or deny. If you hear nothing after these windows close, contact the Department of Labor.

Disputing a Denial

A denial is not the last word. You can request a hearing before a Department of Labor hearing officer, and you must do so within 18 months of the denial.¹¹ The hearing officer issues a binding decision.

Either side can appeal the hearing officer’s decision to the Compensation Appeals Board within 30 days. The Board holds a de novo hearing, so new evidence is allowed, but no new issues can be added beyond what was argued at the Department of Labor level. Appeals are typically scheduled about six months out.¹²

One more deadline: if four or more years pass since you last received indemnity benefits or had a claim denied, your right to petition for review based on changed circumstances expires.⁵

Keeping Your Job During Recovery

The workers’ compensation statute does not by itself guarantee your job will stay open while you recover. Other laws fill that gap.

FMLA

If your employer has 50 or more employees and you have worked at least 1,250 hours in the past year, your workers’ compensation absence can run at the same time as leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act, provided the injury qualifies as a serious health condition. That gives you up to 12 weeks of job-protected leave. If your doctor clears you for light duty before the 12 weeks are up, you can accept it, but you are not required to. Declining light duty may end your wage benefits, though unpaid FMLA leave continues until the 12 weeks run out.¹³

ADA Accommodations

If your injury results in a lasting disability, the Americans with Disabilities Act may require your employer to provide reasonable accommodations, such as modified duties, adjusted schedules, ergonomic equipment, or reassignment to a vacant position. The employer must accommodate you unless doing so would create an undue hardship.¹⁴

Retaliation

Federal law prohibits firing, demoting, or otherwise retaliating against you for reporting a workplace injury. Under OSHA’s whistleblower protections, if you believe your employer has retaliated, you must file a complaint with OSHA within 30 days of the retaliatory action.¹⁵

Taxes and Social Security

Workers’ compensation benefits are not taxable income under 26 U.S.C. § 104(a)(1).¹⁶ New Hampshire has no state income tax on wage income, so nothing else applies at the state level.

If you also collect Social Security Disability Insurance, federal law caps combined SSDI and workers’ compensation at 80 percent of your average current earnings before the disability. When the combined amount goes over, Social Security reduces its payment, not your workers’ compensation check.¹⁷ Average current earnings are based on either your highest five consecutive years or the single highest year within the five years before your disability, whichever is greater. Report any change in your workers’ compensation benefits to Social Security in writing.

Attorney Fees

New Hampshire caps attorney fees for workers’ compensation claims at 20 percent of retroactive indemnity benefits, paid out of your award rather than as a separate bill. The 20 percent cap applies whether the fight is over compensability, unpaid disability benefits, or a permanent impairment award.¹⁸ When the dispute involves medical bills after the case has already been found compensable, the insurer also pays the attorney’s costs of litigating that issue on top of the 20 percent. Because the fee comes out of benefits you have already won, you usually pay nothing upfront.

1
New Hampshire General Court. New Hampshire Code 281-A:5 – Securing Payment of Compensation
2
New Hampshire Department of Labor. Workers’ Compensation Insurance FAQs
3
New Hampshire General Court. New Hampshire Code 281-A:2 – Definitions
4
New Hampshire General Court. New Hampshire Code 281-A:7 – Liability of Employer
5
New Hampshire Department of Labor. Timeframe for Filing a Claim
6
New Hampshire Department of Labor. Employer’s First Report of Injury
7
New Hampshire General Court. New Hampshire Code 281-A:23 – Medical, Hospital, and Remedial Care
8
New Hampshire General Court. New Hampshire Code 281-A:31 – Compensation for Temporary Partial Disability
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New Hampshire General Court. New Hampshire Code 281-A:32 – Permanent Impairment
10
New Hampshire Department of Labor. Injured Employee Benefits
11
New Hampshire Department of Labor. Department Level Hearings
12
New Hampshire Department of Labor. Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board
13
eCFR. 29 CFR 825.702
14
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Enforcement Guidance on Reasonable Accommodation and Undue Hardship Under the ADA
15
Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Worker Rights and Protections
16
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 104 – Compensation for Injuries or Sickness
17
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC 424a – Reduction of Disability Benefits
18
Cornell Law Institute. NH Admin Code Lab 207.01 – Attorney Fees for Department of Labor Hearings