Form 18 in North Carolina Workers’ Compensation: How to File Your Claim and Protect It

What Is Form 18 In A North Carolina Workers’ Compensation Claim?

Form 18 is the Industrial Commission’s claim form for an injured employee. The Commission’s guidance for injured workers says it plainly: an employee files a workers’ compensation claim by completing and filing a Form 18. It is a short form, posted on the Commission’s forms page as a PDF (a Spanish version sits beside it), and it can also be submitted through the Commission’s Online Services Center.

It does two legally distinct jobs. Delivered to the employer, it is the written notice of the accident that N.C. Gen. Stat. § 97-22 requires. Filed with the Commission, it is the claim that N.C. Gen. Stat. § 97-24 says must be on file within two years or the right to compensation is “forever barred.” A worker who does only one of those has done half the job.

Workers’ compensation is no-fault. North Carolina’s contributory negligence rule, which bars an ordinary injury claim over even 1% of fault, does not apply to a Chapter 97 claim (the exceptions are the § 97-12 intoxication and willful-injury bars). So the Form 18 never asks whose fault the accident was. It asks what happened, when, where, and what was hurt.

Who Files The Form 18, And When Is It Due?

The injured employee files it; a representative (such as an attorney or guardian) files it if the employee cannot, and a dependent files it in a death case. Nobody else’s paperwork substitutes. The Commission states that the filing of a Form 19 by an employer or carrier does not constitute the filing of a claim for the employee, a point the Form 19 chapter explains.

Two clocks run, and the Form 18 answers both. Under § 97-22, written notice must reach the employer “immediately on the occurrence of an accident, or as soon thereafter as practicable,” and no compensation is payable unless written notice is given within 30 days, unless the Commission accepts a reasonable excuse and finds the employer was not prejudiced. Under § 97-24, the claim must be filed with the Commission within two years after the accident (or, when only medical bills were paid, within two years after the last medical payment). Compensation actually paid within two years also satisfies the bar, but a carrier that has been paying can stop; a filed Form 18 is the only protection you control.

What Does Each Part Of The Form 18 Ask For?

The form tracks the notice statute. N.C. Gen. Stat. § 97-23 says the notice must state “in ordinary language the name and address of the employee, the time, place, nature, and cause of the accident, and of the resulting injury or death.” Expect to supply:

• Your identifying information: name, address and contact details, so the Commission and carrier can match the claim to you.
• The employer: the business you were working for when hurt and, if you know it, its insurance carrier.
• The accident: the date, the place, a plain description of how it happened and the body parts injured. “Ordinary language” is the standard; no medical or legal terms needed.
• Your job and pay: which feed the average weekly wage under N.C. Gen. Stat. § 97-2 that sets your weekly benefit rate.
• Your signature and the date on the claim for benefits.

Where Does The Form 18 Go Once It Is Filled Out?

Two places. The original goes to the Industrial Commission, by mail to 1240 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, NC 27699-1240, or through the Online Services Center. A copy goes to the employer, and to the carrier if you know who it is. Section 97-23 allows notice “personally to the employer or any of his agents” or “by registered letter or certified mail,” so get a dated acknowledgment if you hand it over and keep the receipt if you mail it. When a carrier later argues notice was late, that receipt ends the argument. The Commission’s help line (919-716-1700 or 800-688-8349) can explain forms and procedures, though it cannot give legal advice.

What Happens After The Form 18 Is Filed?

The insurer has to answer. N.C. Gen. Stat. § 97-18 gives the employer or carrier 14 days from written or actual notice of the injury to do one of three things, each on a Commission form:

• Accept (Form 60, “Employer’s Admission of Employee’s Right to Compensation”). Under § 97-18(b) the first installment is due on the fourteenth day after notice.
• Deny (Form 61, “Denial of Workers’ Compensation Claim”). Under § 97-18(c) the denial must give “a detailed statement of the grounds” and tell you of your right to request a hearing under N.C. Gen. Stat. § 97-83. The denied-claim chapter covers what comes next.
• Pay without prejudice (Form 63). Under § 97-18(d) the carrier may pay while it investigates, for up to 90 days from notice (one extension of not more than 30 days); if it does not contest within that window it “waives the right to contest the compensability of and its liability for the claim.”

What Are The Most Common Form 18 Mistakes?

A handful of avoidable errors account for most of the claims that go wrong:

• Reporting verbally and stopping. Telling a supervisor is not written notice under § 97-22. The Form 18 is.
• Treating the employer’s Form 19 as your claim. It does not file a claim for you or stop the two-year clock.
• Waiting to see whether the injury improves. Both clocks start at the accident.
• Describing the injury differently each time. The Form 18, the medical records and what you told the employer should match.
• Not keeping proof of delivery. Certified-mail receipts and dated acknowledgments prove notice was timely.
• Reading the first week’s silence as a rejection. No wage checks are owed for the first seven days of disability; see the waiting-period chapter.

What Are Form 18B And Form 18M?

Two sibling forms are easy to confuse with the Form 18. Form 18B is the “Claim by Employee, Representative, or Dependent for Benefits for Lung Disease,” the claim form for occupational lung-disease cases rather than an injury by accident. Occupational-disease timing is governed by a separate section of the Act that this guide does not cover, so do not assume the two-year injury rule applies; ask a lawyer about the deadline.

Form 18M is the “Employee’s Application for Additional Medical Compensation.” It is not a claim for a new injury. It is the form for asking the Commission for further medical treatment in a claim where benefits have already been paid, which is why the carrier’s closing report (the Form 28B) carries a notice of the employee’s right to additional medical compensation. If a Form 28B has arrived, get advice before its notice period runs.

What If I Already Missed The 30-day Notice Deadline?

File the Form 18 anyway, today. Late notice is not automatically fatal: § 97-22 allows compensation where “reasonable excuse is made to the satisfaction of the Industrial Commission for not giving such notice and the Commission is satisfied that the employer has not been prejudiced thereby.” Both halves must be shown, and both are shown regularly. A worker who did not realize the injury was serious, who was told a supervisor had reported it, or whose employer plainly knew about the accident the day it happened is in a strong position, because an employer that already knew cannot easily claim it was prejudiced by missing paper.

The two-year claim bar in § 97-24 has no such safety valve in the text quoted here. So if the accident was more than 30 days ago but less than two years, the notice question is arguable and the claim bar is still open: get the Form 18 filed first, then deal with notice. If the carrier denies on late notice, that denial goes to a Deputy Commissioner on a Form 33 hearing request, where the excuse and prejudice questions are decided. Joshua E. Palmer, Attorney at Law reviews late-notice situations for free; every attorney fee in a workers’ compensation claim must be approved by the Commission under N.C. Gen. Stat. § 97-90, and there is no fee unless benefits are recovered.