Glossary

With prejudice is the opposite of a dismissal without prejudice; it is meant as a final judgment of dismissal with the result as conclusive as if the action had been prosecuted to final adjudication adverse to plaintiff. A dismissal with prejudice means that the lawsuit is dismissed permanently. The plaintiff is not able to file another lawsuit based on the same grounds.

Workers compensation is the system by which no-fault statutory benefits prescribed in state law are provided by an employer to an employee (or the employee's family) due to a job-related injury (including death) resulting from an accident or occupational disease.

A workers compensation and employers liability policy is an insurance policy that provides coverage for an employer's two key exposures arising out of injuries sustained by employees. Part One of the policy covers the employer's statutory liabilities under workers compensation laws, and Part Two of the policy covers liability arising out of employees' work-related injuries that do not fall under the workers compensation statute. In most states, the standard workers compensation and employers liability policy published by the National Council on Compensation Insurance (NCCI) is the required policy form.

Workers compensation catastrophe cover is excess of loss reinsurance purchased by primary workers compensation insurers to protect against an accumulation of losses resulting from a catastrophic event or series of events.

A Workers' Compensation Claim Law Associate is a specialist designation offered by the American Educational Institute (AEI). It requires successful completion of both the AEI legal principles and workers compensation self-study programs.

A Workers' Compensation Claims Law Specialist is a designation offered by the American Educational Institute (AEI). It requires successful completion of the AEI workers compensation self-study program.

The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act is a federal act designed to allow workers additional time to seek alternative employment prior to (1) a plant closing, (2) a mass layoff, or (3) a cumulative layoff. The law applies to any private-sector or nonprofit employer with 100 or more full-time employees and applies to both hourly and salaried employees, including those in managerial and supervisory positions. However, it does not apply to (1) employees who have worked for less than 6 months, and (2) those who work less than 20 hours per week. Many states have their own versions of the WARN Act that supersede the federal law. State versions are usually more liberal than the requirements under the federal version. For example, state versions may apply to even smaller businesses or also apply to part-time workers. The majority of employment practices liability (EPL) policies preclude coverage for claims alleging failure to provide notice as required by the WARN Act, although most cover the defense costs associated with such allegations. The rationale for this exclusion is that such claims are within the insured's control and, therefore, are preventable.

Working interest describes a percentage of ownership in a mineral lease granting its owner the right to explore, drill, and produce oil and gas from the leased property. Working interest owners bear all of the costs and liabilities associated with leasing, drilling, producing, and operating a well but share in only part of the production revenue from a successful well. The share of production revenue to which a working interest owner is entitled will always be smaller than the share of costs that the working interest owner is required to bear, with the balance of the production revenue accruing to the royalty owners. For example, the owner of a 100 percent working interest in a lease burdened by a landowner's royalty of 20 percent would be required to pay 100 percent of the exploration, development, and operating costs but would be entitled to only 80 percent of the production revenue. The royalty owner would be entitled to the remaining 20 percent of production revenue.

A working layer is a dollar range in which an insured or, in the case of an insurer's book of business, a group of insureds is expected to experience a fairly high level of loss frequency. This is the layer typically subject to deductibles, self-insured retentions (SIRs), retrospective rating plans, and similar programs. Sufficient loss frequency in the working layer allows many organizations to provide some degree of statistical credibility to actuarial forecasts of the total expected losses during a specific period of time—for example, 1 year.

A workmanship exclusion is a liability insurance exclusion that precludes coverage for damage to the insured's work resulting from that work. It's also a builders risk exclusion that precludes coverage for loss caused by faulty workmanship.