Charlotte News Channel Tackles Out-of-Compliance Employers in Consumer Report

Thursday, February 9, 2017 | 0

After the North Carolina Industrial Commission released a report indicating that just under 70,000 workers' compensation claims were filed in Fiscal Year 2015, a Charlotte news channel began an investigation into what happens when employers don't have workers' compensation insurance.

Bryan Strickland

WSOC-TV 9 released the results of that investigation in a roughly four-minute consumer report that aired Wednesday.

The report reminds viewers that North Carolina law requires all businesses with three or more employees to obtain workers' compensation insurance, with limited exceptions. 

Reporter Jason Stoogenke interviews Larry Burns, a deliveryman who broke his leg in a slip-and-fall. Though his employer had more than three employees, it did not carry comp insurance, and Burns ended up losing his apartment due to staggering medical bills.

He also interviews Bryan Strickland, the North Carolina Industrial Commission's director of compliance and fraud investigations. When Strickland came on in 2013, he said he established a database that flags employers who may be out of compliance with workers' compensation laws. The commission went from charging 10 employers with noncompliance and collecting $374,000 in fines before Strickland arrived to charging 150 employers and collecting roughly $1.5 million in fines last year. 

The committee has charged 210 employers since July.

A state audit of the Industrial Commission released in November estimated that, as of June, 52,000 North Carolina employers lacked workers' compensation coverage. 

"Until the Commission improves its noncompliant business identification process, North Carolina’s citizens remain at risk of being injured at work while not covered by Workers’ Compensation insurance," the auditor wrote.