BANGOR – A Massachusetts insurance company has agreed to pay the full death benefits under the state workers’ compensation law to the families of the 14 foreign workers killed on the way to their job site last Thursday.

The 14 men from Honduras and Guatemala died Thursday morning after the van in which they were riding at speeds in excess of 50 miles per hour flipped off John’s Bridge in the Allagash Wilderness Waterway and plunged into 15 feet of water. There was only one survivor of the crew that was in Maine to thin trees on privately owned forest property.

On Tuesday, Liberty Mutual of Massachusetts said it had “accelerated [its] claim process” to cover the unidentified amount of expenses related to preparing the men’s bodies for burial and transportation to their homelands. The benefits also will cover actual burial costs, said John Cusolito, vice president of external relations.

“[We] are working closely with the Maine Workers’ Compensation Board to expedite paying benefits the families are rightfully entitled to under the state’s workers’ compensation law,” Cusolito said.

Under the state law, Liberty Mutual had 14 days from last Friday, the date the initial claims were filed by the workers’ employer, Evergreen Forestry Services, to pay or deny the benefits.

The state workers’ compensation law specifies that the victims’ families or whoever pays burial expenses are entitled to up to $4,000 for actual burial costs and up to $3,000 for incidental expenses, such as transportation.

Cusolito said even if the costs for burial and transportation fall below the $7,000 prescribed under the federal act, that the victims’ families would be paid the full amount.

“We’re committed to providing the full benefit to the families,” Cusolito said.

Steven P. Minkowsky, deputy director of the state’s Workers’ Compensation Board, said he was pleased that the full benefit would be paid.

“This is a large exposure for them,” Minkowsky said.

What has not been decided is whether the victims’ families would receive “lost time” benefits from Liberty Mutual. Cusolito said he was unaware of whether a determination had been made yet.

If “lost time” benefits are paid, the workers’ compensation board would review the victims’ wage forms to compute an average week wage, which is the foundation for an assessment of benefits. The board has received the wage forms, but is awaiting a list of dependents for each victim, Minkowsky said.

“It’s just a massive project,” Minkowsky said.

If “lost-time” benefits are paid, spouses or dependents would be paid 80 percent of the average net weekly wage for 500 weeks, Minkowsky said. If a victim left behind a spouse with dependents, an amount would be decided based on the number of people living in a household, he said. And if the 500 weeks end before a child becomes 18 years old, the child would continue to receive benefits.

The benefits, though, are not to exceed a cap of $491.35 per week, Minkowsky said.

“You could have 24 kids in a family, but you can’t have any more than [the cap],” he said.

If a victim did not have a spouse or dependent, the state’s workers’ compensation board would receive 100 times the state’s average weekly wage of $549.94. The nearly $55,000 would go into the board’s rehabilitation fund, Minkowsky said.

He said it is unlikely that Liberty Mutual will deny a payment of “lost time” benefits, and the insurer is looking to make provisional payments to the families until an actual benefit amount is determined.

Any disputes of the average weekly wage would be reviewed under a board dispute resolution process, he said.

How much it will cost to transport the 14 bodies to Honduras and Guatemala is not known. Rosa Maria Merida De Mora, consulate general of Guatemala, and Antonieta Maximo, consulate general of Honduras, both said Tuesday that they have not received a final report on the cost.

The four Guatemalan men killed last Thursday were released from the state medical examiner’s office and are at Knowlton & Hewins & Roberts Funeral Home in Augusta, said co-owner Leon Roberts.

“We are taking care to return them to Guatemala,” he said.

According to international codes for transporting human remains to Guatemala, the four men will be placed in caskets, which Roberts said the Maine Forestry Services would be picking out.

Merida De Mora said two of the bodies will be flown to Guatemala on TACA Airline on Friday and the other two will be transported on the same airline on Saturday.

“TACA doesn’t take them together,” said Merida De Mora, noting that the airlines has a limit of two human remains per flight.

Nine of the 10 Hondurans killed last week are being prepared for burial and transportation at Kincer Funeral Home in Richmond. Owner Chuck Kincer said he is familiar with preparing bodies for international transport because of his past experience as an embalmer at a Boston funeral home.

“We’d handle several international cases in a day,” Kincer said. “We’ve had the volume before but not all at once.”

He said the nine Hondurans would be placed in sealed cases and not caskets before they are flown to Central America. When they would be returned home still is being worked out, Kincer said. It’s possible that they will be flown from Portland to Miami, for placement on a TACA airline. But, he said, the airlines’ limit on human remains could delay all of victims returning expeditiously to their families.

Another possibility, Kincer said, is that an airline would be chartered “so all the families get their loved ones back.”

Both funeral home directors said they are trying to complete paperwork, such as death certificates and proof that the victims are free of diseases, in accordance to international codes. Maximo said she was returning to Maine this week to help out with the paperwork.

“It must be hard for the families to be waiting,” Roberts said. “Unfortunately, there’s a lot of paperwork.”