“I Got Hurt at Work in New Brunswick!” | WorkSafeNB Claim: Reporting, Benefits, Reviews and Appeals, and What to Record

A sawmill worker with a bandaged hand talks on his phone from the tailgate of his pickup truck, stacks of lumber behind him.

A WorkSafeNB claim starts when you tell your employer you were hurt and send WorkSafeNB an application within one year of the injury or illness. Wage loss benefits are 90 per cent of your net earnings, from the first day, up to $85,800 a year in 2026, along with health care costs. If you disagree with a decision, you have 90 days from the date on the letter to ask the Decision Review Office for a review, then one year to appeal to the Workers' Compensation Appeals Tribunal.

Across Canada, workers' compensation boards accepted 348,747 lost time claims in the most recent year reported by the Association of Workers' Compensation Boards of Canada. In New Brunswick, a claim moves through the same few steps each time. Here they are in order, with what to keep at each one.

How do you report a workplace injury in New Brunswick?

Three steps, set out in WorkSafeNB's guide for workers:

  1. Tell your employer as soon as possible, the same day if you can.
  2. Complete Form 67, the Report of Accident or Occupational Disease, with your employer. Your employer must send it to WorkSafeNB no later than three days after the accident.
  3. Tell your doctor the injury happened at work.

Write down the date you told your employer, who you told and how. That one line settles a question that is hard to answer a year later.

How do you file the claim, and by when?

Your employer's report does not file your claim for you. WorkSafeNB's Application for Workers' Compensation Benefits states that workers have one year from the date of the accident, injury or illness to file. You can send it by email, mail or fax. For wage loss, include pay stubs for the four weeks before you stopped work.

Occupational hearing loss uses its own application form, except where it came from one event such as an explosion. If you are not sure the injury will last, apply anyway. Waiting to see often costs more than an application you later do not need.

What benefits does WorkSafeNB pay?

  • Wage loss benefits of 90 per cent of net earnings, a rate that took effect on 1 July 2024.
  • Up to maximum annual earnings of $85,800 for 2026, set at 1.6 times the provincial industrial aggregate earnings.
  • No unpaid waiting period. The three unpaid days were fully eliminated on 1 July 2021.
  • Health care costs, case management to help you return to work, and long-term disability benefits where an injury continues.

Our Recovering After a Workplace Injury in New Brunswick article explains how these benefits fit together over a longer recovery.

What if you disagree with a decision?

Start with the person who signed the letter. Giving them information they have not seen has no stated time limit and sometimes resolves the issue.

The formal step is a review by the Decision Review Office:

  • 90 days from the original decision date printed on your letter, not the day it arrived.
  • Up to 10 decisions on the same claim number can go in one application.
  • The office may accept a late request where it finds the delay justified, though planning on 90 days is safer.
  • It does not review decisions made before 1 January 2020.

The review is required. You cannot go to the tribunal without a Decision Review Office decision first.

How do you appeal to the Workers' Compensation Appeals Tribunal?

The Workers' Compensation Appeals Tribunal is independent of WorkSafeNB. You have one year from the Decision Review Office decision to file a Notice of Appeal, online or by mail, and the tribunal can extend that in special circumstances. If an advocate or lawyer represents you, they file the notice, not you.

Expect it to take time. The tribunal notes that several months can pass before a hearing is scheduled. Treatment and costs carry on during that wait, and your record of them is part of what the hearing looks at.

Health and safety decisions run on a much faster track. A Chief Compliance Officer decision under the Occupational Health and Safety Act must be appealed to the tribunal within seven days. Check which kind of letter you are holding.

Free help exists. Worker's Advocates assist injured workers at no cost at every step, at 1-844-530-0282. Our New Brunswick WorkSafeNB appeal deadlines article lists all five clocks in one place.

What should you write down?

  1. The day of the injury: time, place, task, witnesses, and the date you told your employer.
  2. Every body part affected, including ones that seemed minor at first, with the date each symptom began.
  3. Your work: the tasks you cannot do, modified duties offered, and how each attempt went.
  4. Every appointment, who you saw and what they recorded.
  5. Every decision letter, with its printed date and the 90th day after it marked on your calendar.
  6. Every call with WorkSafeNB: the date, the person and what was said.
  7. Costs: prescriptions, travel to treatment and anything paid out of pocket.

Keeping the record

A review or appeal looks back at what was written down while you were recovering. Keep your letters in date order with the claim number on each, and a few lines a day on how you are doing. The National Workplace Injury Recovery Guide holds that daily record, and the New Brunswick Workplace Injury Companion Guide keeps the WorkSafeNB dates and forms together. If you were hurt in a vehicle while working, see our article on a New Brunswick car accident injury claim as well. Lire en français : réclamation à Travail sécuritaire NB.

Why use Hurt Square?

Because WorkSafeNB decides on what reaches your file, and the one-year limit to apply comes quickly. Hurt Square guides give you one place to keep it all.

  • Your account, written as it happens. The National Workplace Injury Recovery Guide has structured space for your symptoms, appointments, time away from work and every conversation with your employer and WorkSafeNB.
  • The New Brunswick rules, in plain words. The New Brunswick Workplace Injury Companion Guide holds the board, the forms, the deadlines and the appeal routes in New Brunswick.
  • Made for hard days. 123 pages and more than 1,200 fillable fields that work on your phone, tablet or computer, in plain language. When your union representative, worker adviser or lawyer asks for something, it is already there.

Both guides, $39 until 22 November. The National Workplace Injury Recovery Guide and the New Brunswick Workplace Injury Companion Guide, with the discount applied at checkout. Bought separately: $63.99.

Get both guides

Sources

Last verified: 14 October 2026. If you find something out of date here, write to Recovery@hurtsquare.ca and we will correct it publicly.

This article is general information for people in New Brunswick. It is not legal, medical or insurance advice.
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By entering your details, you agree to receive recovery tips and offers from Hurt Square. We use your first name and province to send you what applies where you live. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Free for your wallet: a printable card that tells you what to do first if you are hurt at work and what to write down.

Everything above is free.

If you want the whole system, it comes in two parts.

Two things decide how an injury claim goes.

What you wrote down. The National Recovery Guide is the daily record: symptoms, appointments, calls, costs, and what you can no longer do. It is the part a claim is eventually judged on.
Whether you did the right thing at the right time for where you live. Your Provincial Companion Guide carries your deadlines, your forms, your boards and your appeal routes. Ontario is not British Columbia. Generic advice sends people to the wrong form, and then to the wrong date.

Buy only the National Guide and you keep a perfect record, then miss a deadline nobody told you about.

Buy only your Provincial Guide and you know every date, with nothing written down to send.

You need both. That is why they are priced as a pair.

Bought separately: $63.99. Together: $39 until 22 November.

The discount applies automatically at checkout.

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You are not the only one

Somebody else has already had this exact week.

We closed comments on our articles, on purpose. A public comment box under a page about claims is a place where people give away details that can be used against them later, and we would rather not build that.

The Square is where that conversation belongs instead. Canadians hurt in an accident or on the job say what happened, read what happened to everyone else, and find out they were never the only one. Post under your name or not at all.

Say what happened, in The Square

Know someone going through this? Send them The Square.

Moderated, with house rules. Please leave out claim numbers, adjuster names and anything else that identifies your file. Something specific to your own claim is better sent to recovery@hurtsquare.ca.