The claim rate of industrial accident compensation for overwork suicide is low, but the approval rate is increasing

Basically in South Korea's Industrial Accident Compensation Insurance Act, suicide is regarded as a voluntarily or deliberately self-inflicted death and is not considered an industiral accident. (Article 37 of the Industrial Accident Insurance Act, Standards for Recognition of Industrial Accidents). The cause of suicide is believed to be in the individual. However, if his/her work causes a ‘mental abnormality’, including mental illness and involuntarily drives him/her to commit suicide, it is approved as an industrial accident. In the Presidential Decree of the Industrial Accident Insurance Act, there are specified three criteria of the latter(Table 1).

[Table 1] Article 36 of the Enforcement Decree of the Industrial Accident Insurance Act (Criteria for Recognition of Industrial Accidents Caused by Self-harm)

(1) When a person who has received or is receiving treatment for a mental illness caused by work harms himself in a state of mental abnormality

(2) When a person receiving medical care due to an industrial accident harms himself in a state of mental abnormality due to the industrial accident.

(3) In other cases that a significant causal relationship of self-harm is recognized in a state of mental abnormality due to work-related reasons

In the case of general diseases, it is necessary to prove the relevance of the disease and work in order to obtain an industrial accident approval, but in the case of overwork suicide, for this reason, it should be double clarified that the deceased at the time of suicide was in a 'mental abnormal state' and that the 'abnormal state is work-related'.

In addition, many people are still not fully aware that mental illness or suicide caused by work-related problems can be approved as industrial accidents. There is also a system that makes the devastated bereaved family bear the burden of ‘institutionally proving overwork death’ in order to file an industrial accident claim. These are preventing active workers' compensation claims.

In fact, the claims of overwork suicide in 2018 were 95, accounting for only 19.51% of the total 487 people. In 2019, only 72 out of 598 people, which is about 12%, applied for an industrial accident claim. The reality is that 8 to 9 of those who commit suicide by work-related problems end up in personal matter.

However, what is encouraging is that the requirements for proof of ‘mental abnormality’, which are controversial in interpretation, are gradually relaxed and the approval rate of work-related suicide industrial accident is increasing. It can be seen in detail in the <Guidelines for investigation of work- related mental illness> of the Korea Workers' Compensation and Welfare Service.

The 3rd revised guideline in 2016 requires confirmation of ‘psychiatric abnormality’ when investigating the work-related suicide and narrowly defined ‘mental abnormality’ as the state of having a mental illness. However, the 4th revised guideline in 2019 alleviates an abnormal state that is not limited to mental illness and is a state in which normal cognitive ability is clearly reduced, and if it can be estimated medically even if there is no previous medical history, it left open the possibility of seeing it as an 'abnormal state'.

Furthermore, in Article 36 (Table 1) of the Enforcement Decree of the Industrial Accident Insurance Act, the third criterion 'when it is medically recognized that self-harm was performed in a state of mental abnormality' has been changed to 'when a causal relationship is recognized as having committed self-harm in a mentally abnormal state', and was reflected in the 4th revised guideline in January of this year. ‘Recognition of a causal relationship’ means recognizing a causal relationship to the extent that it is recognized that a certain event would result in a certain accident based on general experience and knowledge, even if it is not clearly medically or scientifically proven’

Then even if in conditions that are difficult to prove medically and scientifically causal relationship with a clear evidence that the deceased was in a pre-suicidal state of mind, such as having no psychiatric treatment history, committing suicide without any recognizable signs by those close to him/her, or performing impulsively in a state of emotional agitation. If it can be sufficiently estimated that the deceased was in a situation where a mental abnormality could be caused, it could be approved as an industrial accident. This makes it possible to make a judgment that puts more weight on whether the person worked in an environment that could cause such an abnormality, rather than focusing on the individual's mental abnormality itself.

Actually, the 4th guideline included judgment cases for reference - that even if the causal relationship between work and the occurrence of an accident is not medically and scientifically proven, it can be proved by presumption of a causal relationship from the point of view of social norms and the fact that there were no psychotic symptoms (such as hallucinations, delusions, disorganized words and actions etc.) does not affect the proof of the causal relationship (Supreme Court 2017. 5. 31, Case No. 2016 DU 58840). These changes also affected the industrial accident approval rate.

[Table 2. work-related suicides in South Korea : 2015-2020] 

*Source: Korea Workers' Compensation and Welfare Service