§ 127.006.Insurance Contract; Workers' Compensation

Two saving clauses, and both keep the chapter from reaching beyond indemnity agreements.

This chapter does not affect the validity of an insurance contract or a benefit conferred by the workers’ compensation statutes of this state.

The insurance saving is necessary because of how the chapter operates. The insurance exception permits an indemnity supported by a policy, which means policies are written to back obligations this chapter otherwise voids. This confirms that a void indemnity does not carry the policy down with it.

The two instruments are also legally distinct. An indemnity is a promise between contracting parties; an insurance contract is a separate agreement with an insurer, regulated by its own body of law.

The workers’ compensation saving addresses the other side of oilfield injury. Most injuries on a rig are to employees, and compensation benefits are the first response to them.

Those benefits arise by statute, not by contract, and nothing about voiding an indemnity between an operator and a contractor changes what an injured worker receives from their employer’s coverage.

The saving also preserves the compensation bargain itself. That system exchanges an employer’s tort exposure for defined no-fault benefits, and this chapter does not disturb the exchange.

Read with the insurance exception, the chapter’s field is clear. It governs who may promise to answer for whose negligence — not what an insurer owes, and not what an injured worker is entitled to.