Maritime law provides maintenance and cure benefits for those injured at sea or in service to a vessel. Maintenance payments cover housing and basic utilities, while cure covers medical expenses until the injured person can return to work. These benefits are considered ‘no fault’ and are your right as an injured seaman.

Sometimes employers and ship owners offer their injured employee advances on their wages when they are off work with an injury. While this might seem like a much needed and generous offer, these two types of maintenance pay are in fact very different. You should consider carefully whether or not to accept advances if you are struggling to make ends meet while you recover from an illness or injury sustained at sea.

While advances count as income and are fully taxable, there is no taxation of maintenance payments or the covered medical expenses under cure. There are many ways that accepting advances might hurt your ability to file a lawsuit under the Jones Act or maintenance and cure, or ultimately reduce the amount of benefits and compensation you receive.

As you review the chart below, consider whether you are receiving enough maintenance and cure benefits, and weigh the disadvantages of accepting advance payments. In many cases, you would be far better off to engage an advocate to fight for your full and fair compensation.

The maintenance and cure attorneys at Schechter, Shaffer and Harris have decades of experience helping injured maritime workers and longshoremen receive the benefits they need and deserve.