WCB benefits extended to gold miners’ estates

The Workers’ Compensation Board (WCB) in Ontario may pay compensation benefits to estates of gold miners who died of lung cancer.

The original WCB policy restricted eligibility for entitlement and benefits to those workers and dependents who were alive when the interim policy came into effect on Nov. 5, 1987.

It is not a new WCB policy. The change deals only with those claims in which an eligible miner and/or dependent died prior to the aforementioned date. The two types of benefits payable are temporary disability benefits for the worker’s period of illness prior to his death and survivor benefits (paid to the estate of the spouse) for the period of dependency following the worker’s death.

The WCB had originally accepted these claims but had not paid out benefits because the Nov. 5, 1987, survivorship condition had not been met.