In the early 2020s teleworking went from being the exception to an established way of working, and with it came a question that neither companies nor employees can answer as a matter of routine: if a colleague at home, during working hours, trips over the laptop cable, falls down the stairs with the printer in their hands, or burns themselves in the kitchen between two meetings, is that an occupational accident? Who investigates it, who has to prove what, is the company liable for the damage – and if it is, does employer's liability insurance regard the employee's home as a workplace? Some of these questions are legal ones, and case law is still developing; the insurance side, however, can be clarified by reading the policy conditions. This article goes through the three layers from the employer's point of view: the rules on teleworking, the logic of occupational accidents and liability for damages, and finally the limits of the insurance.
- Under Section 52 of the Act on compulsory health insurance (Ebtv.), an occupational accident is one that occurs during or in connection with work done in the course of one's occupation – the location alone does not rule it out: an accident at home can also be occupational if it is linked to the work.
- Under Section 166 of the Labour Code (Mt.), the employer is liable for damage caused in connection with the employment relationship, and is exempted if it proves that the damage was caused by an unforeseeable and unavoidable circumstance outside its sphere of control, or solely by the employee's unavoidable conduct.
- Employer's liability insurance covers not a place but the employer's obligation to pay compensation – whether the employee's home counts as a place of work depends on the definitions and territorial scope of the policy conditions, and varies from insurer to insurer.
Teleworking and home office: what does the law say about the location?
Under Section 196 of the Labour Code (Mt.), in teleworking the employee performs the work for part or all of the working time at a place separate from the employer's premises, and this must be agreed in the employment contract. Home office in the everyday sense – occasional work from home without a separate agreement – is not necessarily teleworking in law, but the accident and compensation question is the same: did what happened occur in the course of the work? For teleworking performed with IT equipment, Section 86/A of the Occupational Safety and Health Act (Mvt.) requires the employer to inform the employee in writing of the conditions for healthy and safe work, while the employee chooses the place of work with these conditions in mind; unless otherwise agreed, the employer may check compliance with occupational safety rules remotely, using IT equipment, within the limits of data-protection rules. The teleworking guidance of the ministry responsible for occupational safety describes the same arrangement. For teleworking not performed with IT equipment, the Act sets stricter, location-bound requirements. The key point for liability: the law itself limits how much the employer can see and check in the employee's home – this comes back later in the question of the ‘sphere of control’.
An occupational accident at home: the concept and the proof
Two related concepts exist side by side. The Occupational Safety and Health Act defines a work accident (munkabaleset) as an accident that befalls the employee during or in connection with organised work – under the statutory definition, regardless of where and when it happens; the employer's duty to investigate it and record it in a report is linked to this concept. Under Section 52 of the Act on compulsory health insurance (Ebtv.), an occupational accident (üzemi baleset) is an accident that befalls the insured person during or in connection with work done in the course of their occupation – the accident-related benefits (accident sick pay, accident-related health care) are linked to this one. Neither concept is about the location; both are about the link to the work: an employee who trips over the cable during a video call has an accident in the course of work even in the study at home, whereas one who falls on the stairs carrying laundry during a break typically does not. Between the two lies a wide grey zone – the employee who goes to get a coffee, opens the door to a courier, or looks after a child in the meantime – and there is no ready-made statutory answer for these cases; the courts decide case by case.
According to the ministry's guidance, the employee must report the accident to the employer; the employer decides whether to treat it as a work accident and, if so, investigates it; if the accident was caused by work equipment, that equipment must undergo an extraordinary inspection (Mvt. Section 23(2)). If the employer does not consider a reported accident to be a work accident, under the Occupational Safety and Health Act it must notify the injured person of this and of the available legal remedy, and the injured person may turn to the occupational safety authority. Whether the accident is occupational for the purposes of accident-related benefits is decided by the health insurance authority under the health insurance rules. At home there are no witnesses, no cameras and no safety representative in the corridor – so the proof depends on the employee's statement, the traces of the work (login records, times of calls and emails, task assignments), photos of the scene and the times recorded in the medical documentation. The techniques in the article on documenting a loss apply here to the employee and the employer alike.
The employer's liability for damages: the sphere of control in the employee's home
Under Section 166(1) of the Labour Code (Mt.), the employer must compensate the employee for damage caused in connection with the employment relationship. Under subsection (2), it is exempted if it proves that the damage was caused by a circumstance outside its sphere of control which it could not have anticipated, and that it could not have been expected to avoid the occurrence of the damaging circumstance or to prevent the damage – or that the damage was caused solely by the injured party's unavoidable conduct. The burden of proof is shared: the employee must prove the damage and that it arose in connection with the employment relationship; proving the ground for exemption is up to the employer. Under Section 167, the employer does not have to compensate damage which it proves was not foreseeable at the time it was caused, nor the part of the damage caused by the employee's culpable conduct.
The employee's home typically lies outside the sphere of control in the physical sense – but on its own that is not enough for exemption, because the three conditions must be met together. If the employer did not hand over the written information required by the Mvt., itself supplied the equipment that caused the accident, or knew about the dangerous circumstance, the ‘could not have anticipated it’ condition is easily lost. Conversely, a hazard in the employee's own household that the employer did not know about – a rucked-up rug, a defective stair – points rather towards exemption. A second layer comes on top of this: under Section 67 of the Ebtv., the employer must reimburse the state health insurer for the accident-related benefits if the accident resulted from its failure to meet its occupational safety obligations. The general picture of employer's liability is given in the article on employer's liability; here the only difference that matters is that the location is the employee's home.
What does employer's liability insurance cover – and where does the home become a question?
Employer's liability insurance covers the employer's obligation to pay compensation arising from an employee's work accident (depending on the policy conditions, their occupational accident, and under some conditions their occupational disease), with or without sérelemdíj (restitution for non-pecuniary harm), depending on the conditions; whether it extends to the health insurer's recourse claim varies from insurer to insurer. Whether an accident at home fits within the cover is decided at three points. The first is the definition: policy conditions typically tie the insured event to the definition in the occupational safety act or the health insurance act, and often also require the work accident report – in other words, the employer's own investigation is a basic document for the insurer as well. The second is the territorial scope and the place of work: some policy conditions refer to the insured's premises and places of work; if teleworking is set out in the employment contract, the employee's home is more easily regarded as a place of work, while how occasional home office is treated depends on the conditions. The third is the exemption: if the accident results from a serious breach of occupational safety rules by the employer, the insurer may, under the policy conditions, be released from paying or may reclaim what it has paid – the burden of proof is on the insurer, and this is not an exclusion but a ground for exemption. What remains outside the cover is an employee's private accident that is not linked to the work; for that, the right tool is not liability insurance but group accident insurance taken out for the employee's benefit. How the four families of cover are distinguished is shown in the article a map of the four types, and the method of reading policy conditions in the crash course on reading policy conditions.
What should the company do – and what should the employee do?
On the employer's side, the sequence is: agree on teleworking in writing; prepare and hand over the written occupational safety information required by Mvt. Section 86/A (workstation, electrical safety, rest periods, use of equipment provided by the employer); set out in an internal rule that the employee must report an accident without delay, and what they should document; extend the work accident investigation procedure to teleworking; and finally, read through the employer's liability policy conditions on the three points above – definition, place of work, exemption – and, if teleworking is regular at the company, ask the insurer in writing whether home work accidents of teleworking employees fall within the cover, and whether a declared headcount or proportion is required for this. On the employee's side: report the accident, see a doctor, photograph the scene and the equipment, and keep the traces of the work. The insurer pays only for what is an insured event under your contract – with an accident at home, it is the investigation and the documentation that make this possible to establish. If you let me know when you are setting up your teleworking arrangements, I help where I can; the occupational safety information, the investigation and reporting the claim are the employer's own, non-transferable tasks.
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Sources
- Labour Code (Mt., Act I of 2012) Sections 166–167 – the employer's liability for damages; Sections 196–197 – teleworking
- Occupational Safety and Health Act (Mvt., Act XCIII of 1993) Section 86/A – occupational safety rules for teleworking; Section 23(2) – extraordinary inspection of work equipment; Section 87, point 3 – definition of a work accident
- Act on compulsory health insurance (Ebtv., Act LXXXIII of 1997) Section 52 – definition of an occupational accident; Section 67 – the employer's reimbursement obligation
- Ministry of Technology and Industry, Occupational Safety Management Department – Teleworking guidance (2022, v4)
