2020 Georgia Code
Title 34 - Labor and Industrial Relations
Chapter 9 - Workers' Compensation
Article 4 - Insurance of Compensation Liability Generally
§ 34-9-124. Policy or Contract of Insurance to Contain Agreement of Insurer to Pay Compensation; Payment of Compensation When Employer or Employee Exempt From Provisions of Chapter

1. No policy or contract of insurance shall be issued unless it contains the agreement of the insurer or insurers that it or they will promptly pay all benefits conferred by this chapter and all installments of the compensation that may be awarded or agreed upon to the person entitled to them and that the obligation shall not be affected by any default of the insured after the injury or by any default in giving notice required by such policy or otherwise. Such agreement shall be construed to be a direct promise by the insurer or insurers to the person entitled to compensation and shall be enforceable in his name.
2. A policy of insurance issued under this chapter shall always first be construed as an agreement to pay compensation; and an insurer who issues a policy of compensation insurance to an employer not subject to this chapter shall not plead as a defense that the employer is not subject to the chapter; and an insurer who issues to an employer subject to this chapter a policy of compensation insurance covering an employee or employees ordinarily exempt from its provisions shall not plead the exemption as a defense. In either case compensation shall be paid to an injured employee or to the dependents of a deceased employee for a compensable accident as if the employer or the employee or both were subject to this chapter, the policy of compensation insurance constituting a definite contract between all parties concerned.

(Ga. L. 1920, p. 167, § 71; Ga. L. 1933, p. 184, § 1; Code 1933, § 114-607.)

Workers' compensation insurance policies containing standard deductibles are prohibited in Georgia since they do not provide for the direct payment to covered employees of all benefits by an insurer. 1980 Op. Att'y Gen. No. 80-126.

RESEARCH REFERENCES

Am. Jur. 2d.

- 82 Am. Jur. 2d, Workers' Compensation, § 480.

- 100 C.J.S., Workers' Compensation, § 875 et seq.

- Right of insurer under Workmen's Compensation Act to recover from employer, who has breached warranty, the amount it has been obliged to pay employee, 22 A.L.R. 1481.

Insurance under Workmen's Compensation Act as coextensive with insured's liability under act, 108 A.L.R. 812.

Policy of workmen's compensation insurance issued to individual as covering employees of partnership of which he is a member, 114 A.L.R. 724.

Refusal of workmen's compensation or employers' liability insurer to act upon claim against employer, or delay or repudiation of liability in that regard, as justifying payment or compromise by employer without complying with provisions of policy that make judgment against employer or agreement with insurer's consent a condition of its liability, 128 A.L.R. 565.