SELF-INSURANCE
Authority to recoup overpayment of benefits
A self-insured employer is allowed to recoup an excess advance payment of an award for permanent partial disability up to one year after the date the initial Department order establishing permanent partial disability is entered. ....Justin David, 03 11776 (2004) [dissent]
Where a self-insured employer continued paying time loss compensation benefits due to the mistaken belief it was required to do so until the Department entered an order in response to its request to close the claim, the self-insured employer, is not entitled to recover the benefits under the provisions of RCW 51.32.240(1) since the payment was the result of a mistake of law rather than a clerical error, mistake of identity, or innocent misrepresentation, or any other circumstance of a similar nature. ....Jonathan Cortese, 90 2342 (1992)
Closing order
RCW 51.32.055(11) allows the Department to adjust benefits when benefits were paid or not paid in a self-insured employer closing order. The fact that the self-insured employer closing order had become final does not ban the Department from requiring the self-insured employer to pay a permanent partial disability award to the worker. ….Dolan Wernet, 08 19992 (2010)
RCW 51.32.055 allows the Department two years to correct a defective closing order issued by a self-insured employer. ....Michael Leahy, 04 20387 (2005)
Insolvency of self-insured employer
If the terms of a bond require that the penal sum of the bond be forfeited to the Department when the self-insured employer becomes insolvent, the Department can require the entire bond be forfeited, notwithstanding the fact that there were no unpaid claims. ….Great American Insurance Company, 09 22005 (2011)
[Editor's Note: The Board's decision was appealed to superior court under Thurston County Cause No. 11-2-00612-1.]
Subsidiaries (WAC 296-15-023)(repealed 1999, See WAC 296-15-031)
When one corporation exercised virtually complete authority and influence over a second corporation, controlled the assets of the second corporation, as well as the policy and daily operations through the appointment of the medical director, the second corporation is a subsidiary of the first under the definition in WAC 296-15-023. ….Group Health Permanente, P.C., 98 20064 (2000)