West Virginia State Firemen's Association

Photo by John Holstein

State Capitol – West Virginia State Auditor Glenn Gainer III was on hand during Firefighter Day at the West Virginia State Capitol Complex to personally hand-deliver several worker’s compensation reimbursement checks to several departments in the State. Capt. Chasity Gregory of the Alum Creek Volunteer Fire Department was on hand to accept the check for her department. Auditor Gainer stated “…there’s still approximately three and half million of the 5 million million dollars acquired during last year’s Legislative session. We still have many departments left to reimburse and we’ll need to acquire funding in the future.”

Through the help of the Auditor’s office, a streamlined process has been developed to receive, enter and return reimbursements in an efficient manner. Mr. Gainer stated that their office attempts to get each and every reimbursement check out within 24 hours of initial receipt.

The West Virginia State Auditors Office was empowered by the West Virginia Legislature in
2011 to implement and administer H.B. 3271 (The Volunteer Fire Department Workers’
Compensation Premium Subsidy Program). The Auditor assembled a cross functional work
team made up of representatives from his office, the Office of the State Insurance
Commissioner, the National Council on Compensation Insurance, Inc., and the WV State Fire
Marshal. This team developed:

~ Administrative parameters
1 Data processing requirements

1 Communication strategy

The team completed the development in June 2011 with the launch of a new page on the State
Auditor’s website, which provided the information and requisite documentation to assist
volunteer fire departments in acquiring Workers’ Compensation Premium Subsidy. Subsidy
requests began to arrive in early July 2011.

To date, ofthe 416 state volunteer fire departments, 288 have applied for the subsidy. Of that
group, 264 have been processed (the difference being work-in-process). Subsidy payments
currently total $1,267,139.05. The average payout has been $4,399.79.

All payments described are based on Initial Estimated Premiums. The actual Workers’
Compensation Premium for an individual volunteer fire department will not be known until the
tinal audit is completed (estimated at 15 months after the initial date ofthe policy). The result of
the final audit can result in another payment due to the carrier or a refund to the volunteer fire
department dependent on the actual number of hours worked by those individuals within the
771 ‘l class code (fireñghterldriver).

Download the PDF Document

As we have stated repeatedly over the course of the last year, Brickstreet will no longer be offering a renewal or new Worker’s Compensation policies to volunteer fire departments as of July 1 2011.

In a recent email conversation, it was determined that we need a list of providers that will be offering worker’s comp coverage. Here is the list and an explanation on how you will find coverage:

There are three (3) companies that will be offering Worker’s Compensation coverages under the new plan…Brickstreet is not one of the three (3)…

The three (3) are:

• Traveler’s
• American Mine
• Liberty Mutual

Basically, your fire department will not have a choice – you will go into an assigned risk pool and whichever company is up next in the rotation will get your business – kind of an, “eenie, meenie, minie, moe” type deal.  All of these are good companies.  You can still purchase your plan through your agent of record but that agent will have to send it through the assigned risk pool and you will get whatever company is up to bat at the time.  Premiums, from what I have been told, have risen anywhere from 300 to 700%…reimbursement from the pool timelines are still unknown.  Your department will have to pay your full yearly premium up front and then wait to be reimbursed by the state after you submit your copy of a paid invoice and a copy of your paid invoice from last year – you will be reimbursed the difference…supposedly…but this means that your department will have to float the state…

There is also the issue that, if your fire department runs EMS (First Responder, ALS, BLS, etc.), your EMS related man hours and their related premium(s) are not eligible for the premium subsidy – YES, it was not in the legislation BUT the Legislative Auditor’s Office worked that in…is it right?, NO, but until someone challenges it, it is what they are going by.  Not only does this create an accounting headache for fire departments it creates a dilemma where many fire departments are talking about not running EMS and not assisting EMS as those hours will be disallowed from receiving the premium subsidy reimbursement.

Thomas Miller