If you work in a dangerous field or industry in Oklahoma, you may well be particularly interested to understand what type of benefits your spouse or children might receive in the event that you die after an accident or an illness related to your job. The state workers’ compensation program outlines the parameters for benefits to injured or ill workers based upon the nature of their conditions and also manages death benefits to surviving beneficiaries.
According to the Oklahoma Workers’ Compensation Commission, the exact amount of money that a widow, widower or child of a deceased worker may receive is subject change based upon the latest schedule for these benefits. Based upon the schedule for incidents happenening between November 1, 2015 and October 31, 2016, a surviving spouse may expect to receive the same amount of money in average weekly wage payments whether or not the deceased had any children.
The amount of money a child may receive may vary based upon the number of children there are. This is true even if there is no surviving spouse. If there is no surviving spouse or children, another beneficary may also receive benefits but may receive a lesser amount than a spouse or potentially than a child might have. Some lump sum payments may be possible in some cases instead of payments based on weekly wage averages.
If you would like to learn more about benefits available to the survivors of people killed in work-related incidents, please feel free to visit the death benefits page of our Oklahoma injured employee website.