Every business looks for ways to cut expenses – and workers’ compensation insurance is no exception.  So what’s a better way of saving a few dollars than by reporting your roofers as marketers, your truck drivers as mail clerks, and your construction workers as data entry specialists?

And what do we call such efforts?  Resourcefulness? Creativity? Perhaps even efficiency?  The San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office calls it fraud, and has charged two business owners with felony insurance fraud because of these very efforts, in what appears to be a case of employer-broker collusion to rip off an insurance company.

Sadly, the complaint is a little light on the details, so we can only imagine what the defendants’ are charged with and just how creative they were in (allegedly) stretching the truth as to what their employees actually did.

WCDefenseCA sends its salute to First Comp Insurance for detecting this possible fraud and making sure a case made its way to the DA’s office.  Most times, it is the insurer or self-insured employer that provides the eyes and ears laying the foundation for a fraud case.