Will Insurance Commissioner Poizner Get at the Fraud Against Workers in California's Workers' Compensation System?

Published: August 14, 2007, 9:20 am

By Sam Gold We hear so much in the news about how Workers Compensation fraud is taking billions and billions of dollars from our economy, especially those employers who purposely misrepresent the true occupations of their employees. You've probably heard the story about the roofing company with 45 clerical employees and 1 roofer. Workers Compensation premiums are based on risk and exposure to risk; the higher the risk, the higher the premiums. Just last week, a 42-page report from the Committee on Health and Safety and Workers' Compensation said this cheating means honest employers in a whole array of high risk blue-collar fields could be paying up to eight times more for workers' compensation insurance than they should. Renowned UC Berkeley survey researcher Professor Frank Neuhauser, who co-authored the committee's report, said the fraud rate has shot up from 6 percent in 1996 to about 19 percent in 2002, the most recent year for which he could get the various statistics used

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