Responses to June 21, 2011 Agrip Request on CERT WC

Responses to June 21, 2011 AGRiP Request on CERT WC

As compiled by AGRiP CEO Harold Pumford as of July 7, 2011

The following request was sent by AGRiP CEO Harold Pumford to the Primary Contact of all pools:

A member county pool has asked AGRiP for assistance to determine how other county or municipal pools charge for workers’ compensation coverage for volunteers serving on a Community Emergency Response Team. The requesting official notes that some large member counties may recruit up to 300 volunteers and provide them with CERT training to respond in times of disaster.Such teams may not be used at all during any given year. The requesting pool is located in a state where counties have the option to consider CERT volunteers eligible for workers’ compensation coverage, and member counties are asking if they can provide WC coverage for them in the event they are injured while responding or in training.

On a comparative basis, the inquiring pool currently charges members $75-$100 per year for each volunteer firefighter. However, the members believe this rate is too high for CERT volunteers who may not be called upon in any given year.

If you provide coverage for similarly situated volunteers, please REPLY with information on how you underwrite WC coverage for them. We will share the responses with all who respond in a manner to protect the identity of the responding pools. If you are not familiar with CERT programs click here for additional information.

As you will note below, underwriting ranges from no specific charge to rather sophisticated rating. However, the more I found out about CERT programs, the more I question whether the typical CERT team member is indeed an official volunteer on behalf of a public entity as opposed to a member of the general public responding to a disaster who has had some specialized training.

Responses(including the original inquiry state above) were received from officials in California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon,Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia.

From these responses, it appears that volunteers are not eligible for WC benefits in New Mexico and Washington.

To encourage sharing of actual rates, this compilation does not identify the pool or state for which the respective information is listed. Should you have a need to know which state or pool is involved, please contact Harold Pumford at , or by phone at 1-405-567-2611 to discuss your need. The following responses are in a random order.

1. Emergency response volunteers (in this state) are defined by statute to be “employees” for purposes of work comp, provided they’re registered with the city. This would include both the CERT-type volunteers, and also any volunteers which the city might recruit on an ad hoc basis during an emergency. Since they’re considered city employees, the member city’s emergency response volunteers are therefore covered automatically by (our) work comp coverage. There is no additional charge for covering these volunteers.

1. We are mandated (in this state) to allocate $3,600 in payroll to each volunteer. Based on our current WC rates, it equates to an annual charge of $53.28 per volunteer in that category.

1. As in 2 above, the same is true in another state; but the charge in this state equates to $110.52 per volunteer in that category.

1. We provide workers’ compensation coverage for volunteer firefighters used by our member municipalities. We use a $3,000 “fictitious annual payroll” amount for each volunteer firefighter or police officer and charge the same rate as for a regular fulltime firefighter for both. We have found this to be a fair and reasonable rate for this exposure. Other volunteers are excluded.

1. Our workers compensation statute mandates that general government volunteers be covered for medical expense and also for indemnityat a deemed wage of $100 per month. There are separate higherdeemed wages for volunteer police or firefighters or certain other types of volunteers. We charge the general government employee rate to the volunteer class for CERT volunteers.We require that they maintain rosters of the volunteers who are active each month. Thus, if there is training and they attend, they would be shown on the roster. Likewise, if they are called out to respond to an incident, they would be shown on the roster. Our payroll auditor picks up the rosters at the time of audit to adjust the premiums. We recommend that they maintain a list of active volunteers separately from inactive volunteers since they will have to pay for those who are active as opposed to those who are merely in name only (don't attend training or respond to call outs or just do fund raising).

1. We offer members an Optional Volunteer Accident & Disability Coverage Program which would cover members CERT Team volunteers and any other volunteers with the following benefits:

-$100,000 Primary Medical Benefits

-$500 per week disability for up to 104 weeks

-$200,000 of accidental death & dismemberment coverage

The annual per member cost for the program is $527 for all member entity volunteers, which do not need to be reported or scheduled.The above program has been used by members to cover their CERT volunteers rather than workers’ compensation coverage being provided to “volunteers”.

While not intended for volunteers, carriers can offer WC coverage for volunteers by endorsement in our state., when additional payroll and premium are received. Payroll can be derived from looking at similar paid positions.

1. A Volunteer Governmental Workers Act (within our state) specifies when volunteers to counties/cities are eligible for workers compensation benefits. The act only provides benefits when the volunteer is providing the service, and not when they are training or involved in other administrative activities. Most volunteers are only eligible for medical benefits under the Act. For volunteers that do receive lost time benefits, similar to the CERT volunteers here, the counties keep records of the volunteer hours to facilitate reimbursement from FEMA and other emergency response funding sources. With these records, a charge is made only when volunteers actually are called into action. The premium is charged as part of the payroll audit at the end of the year.Hours are multiplied by the pay rate for similar paid position, then the resulting payroll is rated at a current rate of $2.07 per hundred.

1. We cover CERT volunteers in the same class code as all other public safety volunteers, including volunteer firefighters. The actual cost would depend on the estimated “volunteer months” reported and assumed monthly wage reported by the member. The rate for public safety (including CERT) volunteers this year is $1.26 per $100 of reported payroll. By contrast, paid firefighters are $3.36 per $100.Please seelast 3 pages for information on how we rate volunteer exposures and what reporting we look for from the member.

9.We don't charge for CERT volunteers or any volunteers under the member's direct operational control. We do collect premium on volunteer firefighters when they are trained and supervised by someone other thanthe City/member.

1. We charge a rate of $10 for each CERT volunteer that the County has on their roster. We have been doing this for approximately five years, and has worked very well.

1. We provide that volunteers who are working for a state, county, municipality, or other governmental entity are considered employees and workers’ compensation benefits are payable. This would include volunteer first responders, such as law enforcement officers, fire fighters, emergency medical technicians and paramedics. We currently provide coverage for law enforcement personnel and do not charge a premium related to volunteers. The premium charged is based on the payroll of a member agency’s salaried employees.

12. Volunteer firefighters are the only volunteers eligible for WC benefits in this state; and for medical only benefits, no indemnity.

1. Volunteer members of an county sponsored emergency rescue team are only covered under the Act if they are volunteer fire fighters, police officer, emergency medical technician or ambulance drivers and they are injured while in the normal scope of those duties. Those are the only volunteers covered under the state’s WC Act. Any specific volunteer fire fighter/police/EMT’s who may be covered are the responsibility of their city/village/county employer for any injuries that occur within the scope of their duties, including training, but not during “activation” (a request for assistance by the appointed emergency management coordinator). Once “activation” takes place, the response team is responsible for benefits. If the response team member is not employed by a city/village/county, then the response team is responsible for all compensation benefits, including those that take place during training. Covered volunteers are considered to be earning the state average weekly wage at the time of the injury, and we underwrite them using the existing class codes for volunteer fire fighters and police officers. To sum, CERT volunteer team members are not generally eligible for workers compensation benefits in the state – except for the volunteers who are police, fire fighters or emergency medical technicians, and only when they are injured in the normal scope of performing those duties.

14. Our statutes extend coverage to certain specific volunteers, those being members of emergency management agencies, volunteer ambulance drivers and attendants. These three groups are considered employees by law and receive the same WC benefits as any typical employee. They must be volunteering on behalf of a member county. The only way we bring in any contribution for such volunteers is if the member pays the volunteer in some fashion reported on a 1099. We would treat such a payment the same as we would treat any payment made to an employee though payroll. We would collect some compensation in that regard but it is quite minimal. In essence we don’t make a charge for volunteers of any type.

15. Our county pool has classifications for several types of emergency teams, including Volunteer Ambulance Teams, Volunteer Hazmat Teams, Search & Rescue Teams, and Mutual Aid Teams (which I believe are similar to the CERT Teams you describe). We have not received any requests for WC relative to CERT training programs. The Hazmat teams are made up of county employees as well as volunteers. All members of the team per state mandate must complete training and the team itself must be certified by the state. The team member volunteers come from all types of professions. Mutual Aid volunteers on the other hand actually are made up of law enforcement, fire and other emergency personnel from the county as well as other political subdivisions within the county. We charge a per team rate which is calculated by our actuary, not a per-volunteer rate. We have never requested a list of the members of each of the teams. The per-volunteer rate you mention in your e-mail appears exorbitant compared to our team rates. Our per-team rates include $2,371.46 for volunteer ambulance teams, and $2263.79 per team for volunteer hazmat, search and rescue, and mutual aid teams. As mentioned, the team rates are actuarially calculated, and being that they are relatively low, we assume that there have not been many losses generated from these classes.

VOLUNTEER ELECTION INFORMATION

Public entities that elect to cover volunteers for workers’ compensation must:

Pass a resolution designating the categories of volunteer workers, general job duties, estimated number of volunteer workers and assumed wage by classification. A sample resolution is located on the Pools website.

Include elected volunteer class codes with the assumed payroll figures at renewal each year and report the actual assumed payroll figures upon audit.

Maintain a roster of active volunteers in each category. Rosters are required by statute and are required to verify coverage, to calculate benefits and to determine premium/contribution. Rosters may be maintained electronically on the pools website or departmentally.

Monthly versus hourly reporting:

Most public safety volunteers are reported using a monthly assumed wage. Public safety volunteers are easily tracked on the pools electronic volunteer roster. You need only list the monthly volunteers by category and make additions and deletions to the roster when changes occur.

All other types of volunteers are generally reported and tracked hourly, using the state’s minimum wage. For hourly volunteers members generally use paper rosters kept departmentally for signing in/out daily.

Rosters must be available at the time of injury or audit for coverage verification and premium payment.

Claims examiners review volunteer resolutions, elections and rosters at the time of injury to determine the intent to provide coverage to a bona fide volunteer worker and to verify the assumed wage. Rosters are reviewed at audit for verification of appropriate contribution for coverage.

The pools ability to provide broad workers’ compensation coverage for volunteers is directly related to each entity’s ability to manage the safety and welfare of volunteer workers and to keep verifiable records of the names and hours worked by volunteers.

(A) 1. Public Safety Volunteers (Codes 8411, 8411 F, and 8411 FC)

This volunteer category includes the following descriptions: ambulance drivers, ambulance technician, crime prevention unit, sheriff, emergency medical technician, explorer scout, police officer, police reserve, probation officer, search and rescue, sheriff’s posse (only when used as public safety volunteers) under class code 8411 (see more on Search and Rescue volunteers in the next section). For volunteer firefighters the class code is 8411 F and for volunteer fire chief/assistant fire chief the appropriate code is 8411 FC.

Refer to your Volunteer Resolution for the appropriate amount of assumed payroll to use for this classification. The minimum assumed wage is $800 per volunteer per month (regardless if one day or 30 are worked) for contribution payment and calculation of benefits; however your entity may have elected a higher amount on the volunteer resolution. This assumed monthly wage may be increased at the entity’s discretion in increments of $100.

You will need to estimate the number of volunteer months for each position. Some volunteers are not active every month, i.e., two volunteer firefighters may be active six months out of the year, two volunteer firefighters may be active 12 months out of the year, etc. Thus, the number of volunteer firefighter months in this scenario would be 36, and the total assumed payroll would be 36 x $800 (or elected amount) = $28,800 (see example chart below).

Name / Jan / Feb / Mar / Apr / May / June / July / Aug / Sept / Oct / Nov / Dec
John / X / X / X / X / X / X
Kim / X / X / X / X / X / X / X / X / X / X / X / X
Dale / X / X / X / X / X / X
Bret / X / X / X / X / X / X / X / X / X / X / X / X

(A)2. Search & Rescue volunteers for counties (Code 8411S)

This payroll class code is to be used by counties in compliance with HB 3021 requiring workers’ compensation coverage for volunteer search and rescue personnel. This class of volunteer must be registered with the Sheriff of the county or the Office of Emergency Management, a member of a search and rescue organization registered with the Sheriff and OEM, and acknowledged in writing by the Sheriff and OEM at the scene of a search and rescue. Separate rosters should be kept for certified search and rescue volunteers, apart from other emergency volunteers. The county may use the assumed monthly wage or the state’s minimum wage for this class of volunteer.

(B)Public officials on unpaid boards, commissions, and councils (Code 8742V)

Workers’ compensation can be provided for volunteer boards under this class code if functions performed are strictly administrative, clerical, no manual labor, reimbursed for expenses only and receive no remuneration. For each board, commission, and council you elect to cover, regardless of how many officials are on each board, commissions or council the annual assumed payroll amount is $2500. An example of this would be 3 councils (city council, planning commission, budget commission) at $2500 per board is $7500 total.

(C)Public officials performing manual labor (Code 8742V)

You can include public officials who also perform some manual labor such as mowing lawns, landscaping, or other type of work not usual to a public officials administrative duties. Coverage for this exposure is available based on an assumed monthly wage of $800 per month per public official. Example: Mayor @ 12 (months) X $800 = $9600. This amount is then added to the board/commissions/council amount and included as a total under class code 8742V on the online renewal estimate.

(D)Court–Mandated Community Service Workers/Inmates (Code 7720V)