§ 41. Claim for benefits. The right to claim benefits under this chapter shall be barred, except as hereinafter provided, unless within two years after the injury, or, if death results therefrom, within two years after such death, a claim for the benefits under this chapter shall be filed with the chairperson of the workers' compensation board and a copy of such claim shall be filed with the same officer to whom a notice of injury must be given under section forty of this chapter. The right of a volunteer firefighter or his or her dependents to claim benefits under this chapter for disablement or death, as the case may be, caused by disease shall not be barred by the failure of the volunteer firefighter or his or her dependents to file a claim within either such period of two years, provided such claim shall be filed after either such period of two years and within ninety days after disablement or ninety days after knowledge that the disease is or was due to service as a volunteer firefighter, whichever is the later date. The claim shall be in substantially the same form and shall give substantially the same information as is required to be given in a claim under the provisions of section twenty-eight of the workers' compensation law. Notwithstanding the provisions of any other law, any such claim need not be sworn to, verified or acknowledged. No case in which an advance payment is made to a volunteer firefighter or to his or her dependents in case of death shall be barred by the failure of the volunteer firefighter or his or her dependents to file a claim, and the workers' compensation board may at any time order a hearing on any such case in the same manner as though a claim for benefits had been filed.

The date of injury caused by disease shall be the date of contracture of such disease as determined by the workers' compensation board on the hearing of the claim and the responsibility of the political subdivision liable for the payment of benefits and its insurance carrier shall be fixed by the date of injury as so determined.