North Carolina’s Governor Perdue Signs Important Inter-agency Disclosure Law
North Carolina now has a measure on the books that will enable a heavier enforcement of the requirements to purchase Workers Comp insurance. Governor Perdue signed the bill into law with very little fanfare. The budget and fracking bills received much more press as she vetoed those bills.
HB 237 and the new amendments now make it easier for the Industrial Commission, Department of Insurance, and the North Carolina Rate Bureau to exchange information on which companies are uninsured for Workers Comp coverage. Workers Compensation coverage is not required for companies smaller than 4 workers.
The one main area of concern was the press. Many newspapers had expressed their disappointment with the inclusion of a clause that makes all the information private. This was irony in its true sense.
A newspaper reporter (not any governmental agency or rating bureau) performed with great investigative skills by comparing two different databases to discover there were/are 30,000 companies without Workers Comp coverage.
Could this investigation be done again in the future? The answer is a definite no. The databases are now private – so much for a transparent government. I assume a news outlet could take the North Carolina Rate Bureau and the NC Department of Insurance to court to look at the same documents.
Who or what agency is now going to monitor and enforce the compulsory WC insurance requirements? I am assuming it is not the NC Industrial Commission. The allegedly transparent government of NC became a little more opaque today.
©J&L Risk Management Inc Copyright Notice
