Guam Workers? Comp Compliance

We’re taking a break from all the hot news in the workers’ comp and human resources sector to do a little review of workers’ comp rules again. We’ve already covered all of the 50 states, and Washington DC, I can hear you asking yourself—what could still be left?

How about Guam? This territory of the United States is what they call unincorporated because not all of our laws hold sway there, including parts of the U.S. Constitution. But Guam is also considered an “organized” territory, meaning that the U.S. Congress gave Guam an organic act, which means that the Secretary of the Interior in the Executive Branch of the U.S. government has administrative responsibilities over Guam.

That term “organized” also means that Guam has a similar form of government as the rest of the 50 states, including elected officials from their towns and neighborhoods, and an appointed branch of judges that rule on law. Guam even has its own supreme court, and a U.S. district court tied directly into the main U.S. judicial system.

Guam also has a workers’ comp system. And like the rest of its political structure, a lot of the Guam workers’ comp structure is similar to what we have stateside. The law in Guam that rules over the workers’ comp system is PL 1-80, and it makes workers’ comp coverage compulsory for all employers in the territory. The only main exemption would be employers of domestic servants. Their coverage is not mandatory, but employers of domestic servants can get workers’ comp for them if they so choose.

Guam has an advanced enough workers’ comp system to also use a classification system for all types of workplace jobs—more than 600 of them—that was originally formulated by the National Council on Compensation Insurance, or the NCCI. Only 40 of the 50 states use the system as well.