The Domestic Worker in Israel
Between You, the Insurance Policy and your Employee (IV)

This is the fourth part of a 4-part series clarifying the law regarding Domestic Workers.

The House Insurance Policy

Every insurance policy in Israel has (built into the price) a clause covering any worker (even more than one) that works for you in the insured house as a maid, cleaning lady, gardener, handy man, etc. But this is under the condition that between the policy holder (in this case you) and the worker, there is an employer-employee relationship. Therefore, if you have an electrical short and you call an electrician who works as self-employed, you will not be covered under the terms of the policy should something go wrong.

This policy will cover any bodily injury the employee may suffer in your house up to $1,500,000 (One and a half million dollars) beyond the sum that will be paid by the NII.

As an example I will bring a past case where Mrs. Smith employed Mr. Doe as a gardener in her backyard. Mr. Doe worked in the same garden once a week for more than ten years.

After ten years, Mr. Doe started to complain that the pipes under the garden floor (made of metal and used for irrigation) where too old and were all leaking. Mr. Doe offered to replace them with new ones (made of plastic) but Mrs. Smith insisted on not replacing the pipes, claiming it was unnecessary.

One day, Mr. Doe came to work and when still changing his clothes heard a strong noise from a jet of water. He came out to find two huge water leaks flooding the entire garden. Now Mrs. Smith had no choice but to change the pipes.

They sat down to discuss the price and could not reach an agreement concerning a new request of Mr. Doe that all the tools should be replaced with new ones because the old ones were not working properly and were actually dangerous to use.

Mrs. Smith would not give an inch and, because Mr. Doe had no other choice and he needed the job, he agreed on doing the replacement using the old tools.

The next day Mr. Doe came to work early. In order to replace the old pipes he began to dig using an old shovel. He raised the shovel and brought it down using relatively fast and strong beats as any good professional. In the third beat the shovel broke and the metal part flew straight into Mr. Doe’s leg.

It took him almost a year of partial recuperation, two surgeries and a lot of pain and suffering. The NII ruled that he was disabled, only possessing 40% of his previous capacity, and therefore he was granted allowances for life.

Mr. Doe sued Mrs. Smith who had already notified the insurance company who promptly offered free legal defense. After three years in court the judge found Mrs. Smith guilty of negligence toward Mr. Doe and decided on a total of 1,200,000 shekels as compensation, based on the fact that Mr. Doe was relatively young and would not be able to work as a gardener (or in any other physical work) again.

From this amount the judge deducted the amount the NII would pay Mr. Doe until the age of 65 and the remaining amount was to be paid by the insurer of the defendant, Mrs. Smith, with no deductible. 

Additional articles regarding domestic workers can be found in our site`s Domestic Workers section.

 Sincerely,
 

Tzvi Szajnbrum, Attorney at Law