Florida CFO Announces Effort to Fight Work Comp Fraud

At an Aug. 2 Cabinet meeting, Florida CFO Jeff Atwater announced the creation of a working group to review the practices of some in the check cashing services industry involved in workers’ compensation premium fraud.

According to Atwater, organized criminal enterprises set up shell or fake companies and obtain a minimal workers’ compensation insurance policy. Uninsured contractors pay a fee to use the shell policy and then present a copy of the shell certificate of insurance to a general contractor. The fraudsters often get the job because they are able to underbid honest contractors by removing the cost of workers’ compensation insurance from their expenses. The schemers use money service businesses to cash the checks made out to the shell company.

Florida law generally requires every employee in the construction industry to be covered by workers’ compensation insurance. The effect of this scheme is that workers are left unprotected and honest employers suffer from an uneven playing field.