Workers’ Compensation Fraud: Employers v Employees

If someone were to mention workers’ compensation fraud to you, who would you think was committing the most fraud?

If you guessed the employee…you’re wrong. Most people have the misconception that workers’ comp fraud is primarily an employee faking an injury to obtain money, when in fact top instances of workers’ comp fraud are not committed by employees. The 2017 top ten workers’ comp fraud cases totaled $697.4 million and were all non-employee related. Yep, that’s $0 for employees and $697.4 million non-employees!

In the NC cases we see, when an employer is committing workers’ comp fraud, their intent is often to avoid paying workers’ comp insurance premiums. For instance:

  • Undermining an employee’s job title
  • Underreporting payroll, or paying employee’s in cash
  • Labeling staff as independent contractors, when they are true employees

Here are two links to reference:

9 INVESTIGATES: NC employers may be breaking workers’ comp laws