An agent’s client is a college whose students participate in off-campus internships at other facilities. The college, which does not facilitate or control the internship programs, wants to cover the students as employees under its workers compensation policy in case they sustain an injury while participating in the program.

Q: What are the benefits and drawbacks of providing workers comp coverage to unpaid internship students?

Response 1: With few exceptions, health insurance policies expressly exclude work-related injuries or illnesses. The college should require any organizations using the intern students to provide evidence of their own workers comp.

Response 2: If the interns are unpaid, by the college or the facilities, I question their status as employees. Are they earning college credits through their externships? If so, are the credits "wages"? It doesn't sound like the students should be considered volunteers. I'd ask your state’s Department of Labor for an opinion.

Response 3: It's hard to imagine what the college had in mind. For most other activities, students would not be covered by workers comp. Liability for injuries sustained during a field trip or on-campus activity would be covered by the college's commercial general liability policy and, if it's set up to cover students, its medical payments. Covering them while participating in an internship under the college's workers comp is unusual, unless your state’s workers comp rules consider them employees in that role. You’d need to talk to your state workers comp authority to determine that.

Ordinarily, though, the host business would be the one that needs to worry about injury to interns, and that could be the source of this issue—perhaps one of these hosts made coverage under the college's workers comp a condition for the program?

Phone your state's workers comp authority and ask them the above question, then ask the college's workers comp carrier what they think. Take that information to the college and suggest they discuss this with the attorney responsible for their human resources issues. I think the attorney will set them straight.

Response 4: I'm not familiar with your state's workers comp law, but in most states, an employee is someone who is remunerated for work. If they're not remunerated, they're not employees, and they’re not entitled to workers comp benefits. In situations like this, many organizations procure high-limit accidental death and disability policies with a medical component.

Response 5: Better to place this under an accident and health policy than workers comp. It’s not a question of pros and cons. First, students aren't employees of the university; second, the university has no control over the daily activities—they’re sort of "borrowed servants" of the entity for which they work.

Response 6: The question seems to presume that the college has the option of determining who is eligible for benefits under the workers comp law. That usually is not the case—the workers comp law already defines "employees" for the purposes receiving benefits. You may consider voluntary compensation—offering workers comp benefits to someone who is not eligible, which is a different matter entirely.

Response 7: This is a question for the client's labor lawyer. Does the state’s labor code define students as employees of the college when they’re working for unrelated entities? More than likely, the labor code would consider the students “employees” of the outside entities where they’re working. The students should be covered under those employers’ workers comp programs.

Response 8: Adding someone to a workers comp policy as an employee isn’t a matter of personal desire. Which individuals are eligible for coverage under the workers comp policy is determined by the workers comp statute of any state. The workers comp policy is tied to the law. Even adding the voluntary workers comp endorsement requires the class included under the endorsement's schedule to be legally acceptable.

Confirm that your state’s workers comp law allows the college to voluntarily include students under its workers comp policy. I highly doubt this will be possible, though. Based on this limited information, it appears the college has no control over the students’ work offsite—a minimum requirement for any workers comp law.

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