Free Republic

California's scandal-plagued government-run workers' compensation insurance company spent more than half a billion dollars over the last decade for outside marketing help that often provided "minimal services," a scathing new state audit shows. About half that money went to organizations with direct financial ties to two former board members of the State Compensation Insurance Fund, said the audit to be released today. The company sells workers' compensation insurance to 220,000 California employers. Some marketing groups were paid millions of dollars for merely sending members quarterly newsletters, providing few other services, the report said. The report paints a picture of an...

Senator charges state's largest workers' comp provider with enlisting lobbyists to block probe A state lawmaker on Wednesday accused California's largest provider of workers' compensation insurance of attempting to obstruct efforts to fully audit the carrier, including how rates are set on premiums to pay injured workers. The accusations marked the latest skirmish in a battle over a proposed bill that would enable the state Legislature to audit the administrative and business practices of State Compensation Insurance Fund. State Fund is the largest workers' comp carrier in California with a roughly 38 percent market share. State Fund has spent an...

SACRAMENTO — Soon after taking office in January 2003, state Controller Steve Westly began helping three venture capital firms land multimillion-dollar investments from California's giant pension system, according to public records including e-mails and officials' calendars. Westly, now running for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, received campaign donations from individuals associated with each of the funds, campaign finance records show. At any given time, hundreds of fund managers are angling for CalPERS investments. Westly is one of 13 members of the California Public Employees' Retirement System board, and as the state's chief financial officer, one of the most influential. The funds...

The system of compensating workers for job-related injuries and illnesses that California created nearly a century ago was a double-barreled benefit for employers. A no-fault system would protect employers from lawsuits that injured workers otherwise might file, and a quasi-public State Compensation Insurance Fund would be an insurer of last resort and thus protect employers from arbitrary rate increases by private insurance firms. What we have now, however, is not your grandfather's workers' compensation system. It's become very litigious and very political, and the State Fund is the insurer of first resort, writing more than half of all coverage. When...

<p>The California State Compensation Insurance Fund has fired its longtime accountants following a a dispute over a financial audit.</p> <p>State Fund, the largest workers' compensation insurer in California, will not renew its contract with PricewaterhouseCoopers, severing a 20-year business relationship with the accounting giant.</p>