Injury or sickness as a seafarer

If you are employed by a Swedish company and have questions on compensations for lost time at work (i.e. certificate of illness) or on rehabilitation possibilities, we recommend you contact the Office of Seafaring (Sjöfartskontoret) within the Swedish Social Insurance Agency (Försäkringskassan).

To contact the Office of Seafaring, click here (e-mail).

Injury or disease due to work

When a personal injury occurs at sea you should contact your safety representative (ombudsman) or superior whether or not to establish a notice/report of injury at work. To report an injury at work is an essential part of the systematic improvement of the work environment (systematisk arbetsmiljöarbete, SAM), a law-enforced system in Sweden to reduce work related risks.

Consequences from an injury may arise much later in life. It is therefore sometimes important to fill out a form of injury at work, though the consequences at first may seem minimal.

If you have lost income due to a work related injury or sickness, you may seek economic reestablishment, for instance as a life annuity.

If death is the outcome of a work injury, economical support may be offered to next of kin (life annuity, burial expenses).

You can get more information about work injury and compensations from the Swedish Social Insurance Agency (Försäkringskassan).

Assessment of work related injury or disease

If your company has contracted an occupational health service, you should at first turn to them for help with assessing if an injury or illness is caused by the work environment.

If the illness is of a more complicated nature (cancer, for example), or if an occupational health service is missing, you may contact a Department of occupational and environmental medicine, normally present at university hospitals. You may also contact us at CMH for further advice.

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