Vital N.C. workers' compensation data becomes private ...

Erik Arnold spent much of the past five years spying on people suspected of cheating insurance companies through false workers? compensation claims.

In March, after getting in a car crash on his way to an assignment for Baier Surveillance and Monitoring of Fuquay-Varina, he realized his boss was breaking the law, too ? by not carrying required workers? compensation insurance on the six or so workers he employed.

?We investigated workers? comp fraud, and we didn?t have any (insurance),? said Arnold, 36. ?Ironic is the only word I can use.?

Arnold learned a stiff lesson: Even the employers you?d expect to follow the law sometimes don?t. Now, he said he?s vigilant about asking new employers whether they have insurance.

But workers such as Arnold are now prevented from figuring out whether they?d be protected by insurance should they get hurt at work. This summer, the General Assembly agreed to make information from insurers about employers? coverage confidential.

The state requires that businesses with three or more employees be insured for workplace injuries. When the businesses don?t buy coverage, workers are left with mounting medical bills and often end up relying on government support.

The (Raleigh) News & Observer reported in April that as many as 30,000 North Carolina employers required to carry workers? compensation insurance don?t, leaving their employees vulnerable if they are hurt at work. But much of the data the newspaper used to help make that calculation was soon made private under state law at the request of the N.C. Rate Bureau, an organization that works for the insurance industry.

State officials will meet Monday to discuss how to crack down on cheating businesses; access to insurance information is one of the problems they hope to address.

Gov. Bev Perdue convened a task force of state officials in August after an N&O series revealed that some businesses broke the law by treating employees as subcontractors and by cutting corners on taxes and insurance. The problems had persisted for years as some government regulators sat idle, failing to share information and flag problem employers.

Getting consumers and workers involved in reporting fraud will be critical, said Wayne Goodwin, chairman of the task force and state insurance commissioner. ?Anything that can help detect fraud and help equality needs to happen,? he said.

Protecting its members

The state Industrial Commission has long relied on North Carolina?s Rate Bureau to provide information about employers? insurance coverage, which is collected from private carriers. The commission used the information when investigating claims, and it also provided a public database on its website.

But the Rate Bureau took issue with the way the Industrial Commission shared the data. A private firm in Florida, DataLister, had requested the database of employers and their insurance from the commission to then sell to insurance companies looking for new clients. The Rate Bureau didn?t appreciate its information being used to undercut its members, said Sue Taylor of the Rate Bureau.

?It?s certainly an industry, but we don?t want them getting the data from us,? Taylor said.

Specifically, the Rate Bureau didn?t want Social Security numbers of employers and information about the size of the businesses? payroll released to the public. Those details were not included in data released by the Industrial Commission to DataLister, nor was it included in the database the Industrial Commission provided to The N&O this year.

As legislators considered making the Rate Bureau data confidential this summer, lobbyists for media outlets tried to strike a deal to keep some of the information public; those efforts kept public some data, but less than was available before and not enough to perform meaningful analysis.

Harry Payne, former labor commissioner and a lobbyist for workers? rights at the N.C. Justice Center, said the public database must return.

?It?s the only place workers can check on this without getting under a cloud with their employer,? Payne said. ?The only ones opposed, it seems, would be those with something to hide.?

Source: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/10/28/3627051/vital-nc-workers-compensation.html

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