Workers' Comp Laws in Alaska

Getting hurt on the job is stressful enough without also trying to figure out the paperwork. Alaska's workers' compensation system exists to pay for medical treatment and replace part of your lost wages when a work injury or illness keeps you from working. It is a benefit your employer is required by law to carry for you — using it is not a favor, and it is not something to feel guilty about. Here is what to do, and the deadlines that matter most.

Deadlines first: two clocks, and one is short

Alaska shortened its injury-reporting deadline effective January 1, 2025. Two separate deadlines control your case:

• Report the injury to your supervisor in writing within 15 days. For injuries, illnesses, or deaths occurring on or after January 1, 2025, the Division's own injured-worker guide says you must report the event to your supervisor in writing no later than 15 days from the event date — or 15 days from the date you later discover an injury or illness you believe is work-related. (For injuries before January 1, 2025, the reporting deadline was 30 days.) The Division warns that failing to report on time “may result in lost benefits or your right to any benefits may even be barred.”
• If you missed the reporting deadline, report anyway — late notice is not automatically fatal. Under AS 23.30.100(d), the Alaska Workers' Compensation Board can excuse a failure to give timely notice of an injury. The Alaska Workers' Compensation Appeals Commission has described the Board excusing such a delay under AS 23.30.100(d)(2), noting that when it does, the employee no longer gets the presumption of compensability under AS 23.30.120(b) and has to prove the case without that head start. Late notice makes your case harder; it does not necessarily end it.
• Filing a “claim” is a separate step with its own deadline. Reporting an injury is not the same as filing a claim. See the claim deadlines below.

What to do first

1. Get medical care right away. In Alaska you may choose your own doctor (details below). Tell the provider this is a work injury, and give them your employer's official name and address and the insurer's name and address.
2. Tell your supervisor or employer in writing, no later than 15 days. Ask your employer for the injury report form (the Division's Report of Injury, Form 07-6100, is on its website) and keep a copy for yourself.
3. Write down the names, addresses, and phone numbers of witnesses and anything about the work conditions that may have caused the injury or illness.
4. Keep receipts for medicine, medical bills you paid, mileage, and travel to appointments — these can be reimbursed.
5. If your employer refuses to cooperate or has no workers' comp insurance, contact the Division immediately.

Alaska's workers' compensation agency

The system is run by the Division of Workers' Compensation, part of the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development. The Division maintains case files, provides forms and information, and gives administrative support to the Alaska Workers' Compensation Board, which decides disputed claims. Neither the Division nor the Board pays benefits — the employer's insurer (or an approved self-insured employer) does. The Division publishes a plain-language guide, Workers' Compensation and You: Information for Injured Workers.

Official site: labor.alaska.gov/wc

Who is covered

Alaska's rule is broad: each employer having one or more employees in Alaska must carry workers' compensation insurance, unless it has been approved as a self-insurer by the Alaska Workers' Compensation Board. The Division's employer guide is blunt about it: coverage is mandatory, not voluntary, and there are no “opt out” provisions under the Alaska Workers' Compensation Act. An agreement in which an employee purports to waive workers' compensation benefits is invalid, and it is a crime for an employer to charge employees for any part of the premium.

Alaska is not a monopolistic state-fund state: employers buy coverage from insurance carriers authorized to write workers' compensation in Alaska, or qualify as self-insurers through the Board. Out-of-state policies do not satisfy the Alaska requirement.

Some categories are excluded or treated differently. According to the Division, commercial fishers are an exception (though some workers on floating fish-processing vessels are covered), and other workers not covered include independent contractors, contract entertainers, some taxicab drivers, part-time babysitters, some cleaning persons, some sports officials, harvest help, and some realtors. Most unpaid volunteers are not covered, but some volunteer firefighters, police officers, ambulance attendants, EMTs, and civil-defense or disaster workers are. Sole proprietors, partners, nonprofit executive officers, and LLC members are not automatically covered but may elect coverage; executive officers of for-profit corporations are covered but may obtain a waiver. Federal employees and most maritime workers fall under federal law instead. If you are unsure whether you are covered, ask the Division.

The deadline to file a claim

This is the most important section on this page. Start with the baseline rule, which is in the Alaska Workers' Compensation Act itself. Under AS 23.30.105(a), the right to compensation for disability is barred unless a claim is filed within two years after the employee has knowledge of the nature of the disability and its relation to the employment, and after disablement. Both things have to come together — knowing that you are disabled and that work caused it, and actually being disabled — before that two-year clock starts to run. The same statute sets outer limits: except for a claim arising out of an occupational disease, the maximum time to file is four years from the date of injury; the right to death benefits is barred unless a claim is filed within one year after the death; and if compensation was paid without an award, a claim may be filed within two years after the date of the last payment.

The latent-condition exception. AS 23.30.105(a) also provides that “in the case of latent defects pertinent to and causing compensable disability, the injured employee has full right to claim as shall be determined by the board, time limitations notwithstanding.” If your condition was hidden — something you could not reasonably have discovered until later, such as damage found long after the accident — do not assume the clock has already run out on you. The Board decides those cases on their own facts.

On top of that baseline, the Division's injured-worker guide describes claim clocks that run from a document you receive:

• If your employer or its insurer filed a Controversion Notice denying benefits before you filed a claim (a “pre-claim controversion”), you must file your claim with the Division within two years from the date the Controversion Notice was filed.
• If the employer paid disability benefits voluntarily and then stopped without filing a Controversion Notice, and you believe you are owed more, you must file a written claim within two years from the date you were last paid disability benefits.
• In death cases, dependents must file a claim within one year after the death.
• If your employer was uninsured, you file against both the employer and the Alaska Workers' Compensation Benefits Guaranty Fund, and that claim must be filed with the Division within two years of your injury or illness (one year after death, in a death case).
• If the insurer controverts after you have already filed a claim (a “post-claim controversion”), there is another clock: you must either request a hearing or file a petition asking the Board for more time to get ready, within two years from the date the post-claim Controversion Notice was filed.

The Division's claim form is Form 07-6106, and a Medical Summary must accompany it. Because several of these clocks are tied to notices, keep every letter and notice you receive, write down the date it arrived, and do not assume you have plenty of time. And if none of the notice situations above matches yours — including the very common case where the employer neither paid you anything nor filed a Controversion Notice — the AS 23.30.105(a) two-year rule is the deadline that applies to you, subject to the four-year outer limit and the latent-condition exception. Exactly when your clock started can turn on the facts of your case, so call the Division and confirm your deadline rather than guessing.

Medical care: who picks your doctor

In Alaska, you choose your own treating doctor — a licensed physician, surgeon, chiropractor, osteopath, dentist, or optometrist. You may change your attending physician once without your employer's consent, but you must notify the insurer before you make the change. A referral by your doctor to a specialist does not count as a change. If you change doctors more than once without the insurer's written approval, you may have to pay that doctor's bills yourself, and the Board may not consider that doctor's opinions at a hearing. (If you move more than 50 miles away, the Division's guide says you may choose a substitute attending physician.)

The insurer may require you to be examined by a doctor of its choosing at reasonable times — which may be as often as every 60 days — and must give you at least 10 days' notice of the appointment. If the insurer's doctor disagrees with your doctor, you may petition the Board for a Second Independent Medical Evaluation (SIME) with a physician the Division selects; that petition must be filed and served no later than 60 days from the date you obtained the medical reports showing the dispute.

The insurer is obligated to pay for medical treatment for up to two years following the injury, and may be ordered by the Board to pay beyond that when further care is needed for your recovery.

Wage benefits: how much, and when they start

Alaska does not use the two-thirds-of-gross-wages formula common in other states. Per the Division, the compensation rate is 80% of the employee's spendable weekly wage (your earnings after payroll tax deductions), subject to the statutory minimum and maximum rates for your year of injury.

Waiting period: no compensation is paid for the first three days of disability, unless you end up disabled more than 28 calendar days — in that case the insurer must go back and pay for those first three days too.

Within 21 days after your employer learns of the injury, the insurer must either start paying benefits or controvert (deny) them. The first payment is due 14 days after the employer has knowledge of the injury, and payments continue every 14 days after that. If a payment is more than seven days late, a penalty and interest may be owed to you.

Your weekly rate is capped by a state maximum and floored by a state minimum, and those figures change every year, so they are not printed here. Use the Division's free Benefits Calculator to estimate your own current rate, or call the Division.

The types of disability benefits

• Temporary Total Disability (TTD) — paid every two weeks while you cannot work, until you are medically stable or return to work, whichever comes first.
• Temporary Partial Disability (TPD) — paid if you go back to work at reduced hours or lower wages while recovering; calculated as 80% of the difference between your spendable weekly wage before the injury and after returning to work. Paid until medical stability or up to five years, whichever comes first.
• Permanent Total Disability (PTD) — paid if you can no longer work regularly and continuously because of the injury. Loss of both hands, both arms, both feet, both legs, both eyes, or any two such injuries amounts to PTD unless you can actually earn a regular income; other cases are decided on the nature of the injury, degree of impairment, age, education, work history, retrainability, and availability of suitable work.
• Permanent Partial Impairment (PPI) — a separate benefit for permanent physical loss or loss of use. Once you are medically stable, your doctor rates your impairment as a percentage of the whole person using the AMA Guides to the Evaluation of Permanent Impairment (Sixth Edition), and state law converts that percentage into a benefit.
• Reemployment / stay-at-work benefits — if the injury keeps you from your job for a set number of consecutive days, the Division's Reemployment Benefits Section must notify you about retraining and stay-at-work options. The deadlines in that process are short (often 10 days), so read every letter you get from the Reemployment Benefits Administrator immediately.
• Death benefits — funeral expenses and benefits for a surviving spouse and dependent children are provided by statute. Ask the Division for the current amounts and eligibility rules.

If your claim is denied

If the insurer denies some or all of your benefits, it must send you and the Division a Controversion Notice explaining why. To dispute it, you file a Claim (Form 07-6106) with a Medical Summary with the Division. Your case then goes to the Alaska Workers' Compensation Board — a panel of governor-appointed labor and industry members sitting with a hearing officer — which holds a hearing and issues a written Decision and Order (D&O).

After a D&O you have several options, each with its own short clock:

• Reconsideration (you think the Board made a legal mistake): file a petition with the Board within 15 days of the date the Division served the D&O on you.
• Modification (your situation changed, or the Board made a factual mistake): file within one year after your employer last paid you disability or impairment benefits, or one year after the Board rejected your claim, whichever is later.
• Appeal of a final D&O to the Alaska Workers' Compensation Appeals Commission: the Commission states that appeals of final Board decisions must be filed no later than 30 days after the date the Board serves the final decision and order on the parties.
• Petition for review of a non-final (interlocutory) order: the Commission states these must be filed no later than 15 days after the Board serves the non-final decision or order.

Your appeal rights are printed at the bottom of every Board Decision and Order — read those instructions carefully, because which deadline applies depends on whether your D&O is final or non-final. From the Commission, further review is available in the Alaska Supreme Court. Commission information: labor.alaska.gov/wccomm.

Where to get help in Alaska

• The Division of Workers' Compensation — staff can explain the process, provide forms, and answer questions at no cost. Per the Division's guide, you can reach it at (907) 269-4980 in Anchorage or (907) 465-2790 in Juneau; documents may be emailed to workerscomp@alaska.gov as PDF attachments. (The Division's website notes its Fairbanks office is currently closed, so check the site for current office information.) Start at labor.alaska.gov/wc.
• If your employer has no insurance, notify the Division's Special Investigations Unit right away, and ask about the Alaska Workers' Compensation Benefits Guaranty Fund.
• Suspected workers' compensation fraud — by a worker, an employer, or an insurer — can be reported to the Division's Workers' Compensation Fraud Hotline at 1-888-372-8330.
• Finding an attorney: the Division's guide notes that the Alaska Bar Association has a referral system for attorneys who handle workers' compensation claims, and that you may also call the Division for a list of attorneys familiar with this area of law. If you win before the Board, the Board will order the insurer to pay all or part of your attorney's fees and legal costs.

One caution from the Division itself: be honest. Misrepresenting your health, your injury, or your earnings can be treated as workers' compensation fraud, with civil and criminal consequences. The same rules apply to employers and insurers.

This article provides general legal information about Alaska law, not legal advice for your specific situation. Deadlines, benefit amounts, and procedures change; confirm current details with the Alaska Division of Workers' Compensation before you rely on them.