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In March 2021, the Coalition Against Insurance Fraud formed its first-ever Task Force to examine the too often overlooked topic of Workers’ Compensation Fraud (WC) in America. Led by Gene Donnelly, Assistant Vice President of SIU for Zenith Insurance out of Florida, and Dominic Dugo, Coalition Outreach Coordinator and Retired Chief Deputy District Attorney of San Diego County, they joined a team of 14 insurance experts from throughout the nation with a combined more than 300 years of experience investigating, fighting and prosecuting WC fraud.

The Task Force set out to re-examine and update the decades old $7 Billion estimate of comp fraud in America. Excluding self-insured, the nationwide team of experts determined there is approximately $34 Billion of WC fraud comprising $9 Billion in bogus employee claims and a whopping $25 Billion in employers dodging premiums.

The committee examined a multitude of recent and past studies in the WC arena. To ascertain the value of premium fraud, it used projections of population in the USA and California; a study by Frank Neuhauser from the University of California Berkeley on the Underground Economy and Payroll Fraud; a 2020 study by the Bureau of Economic Analysis that pegged the underground economy in the US at more than $2 Trillion; and a 2017 study of California’s underground economy (believed to be $170 Billion annually). These figures were extrapolated to determine the potential premium fraud taking place in a given year is $25 Billion.

Underreporting payroll to the carrier is the most common scheme of premium fraud. Lower payrolls means lower premiums. Examples of underreporting payroll include paying employees cash off the books; claiming employees are independent contractors; hiding payroll in a shell company without insurance coverage and disguising salary to be mileage or tool reimbursements.

Wisconsin will receive an $80 million federal INFRA grant for the I-39/90/94 Wisconsin River bridge project in Columbia County, covering more than half of the expected cost. The $150 million project will replace the existing bridges with new structures that have three 12-foot lanes in each direction and wide shoulders to accommodate any possible future expansion of the Interstate, which the state is currently exploring. Construction is scheduled for FY 2024. The award is part of U.S. DOT's distribution of $1.5 billion in grant funds. List of grant recipients