CA Senate Bill 189 Amendments:
Further Changes to CA Work Comp Law Effective July 1st, 2018
As of July 1st, there have been some further changes to CA law regarding workers compensation coverage that may affect your policy. The main changes are as follows:
For Corporations: Previously, an owner-officer needed to have at least a 15% stake in a company in order to be able to waive work comp coverage. As of July 1st, those owning as little as 10% are now eligible for waivers.
For Officers/Directors: An officer or member of board of directors of a corporation who owns at least 1% of the stock of the corporation, and whose family member owns at least 10% stock, is now eligible for waiver of coverage.
For Sole Shareholders of a Private Corporation/Private Professional Corporation: These sole shareholders will now be automatically excluded from coverage, but they may elect to be covered if desired.
These are only a couple of the biggest changes, and there are others in the bill. Contact your agent if you would like further information about the changes, or you can read the full script of the senate bill here: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201720180SB189
For most carriers, though the change took place July 1st, they will not allow a change to waivers on the policy during the active policy term. This means that if you need to waive a new owner /officer who was previously covered, this should take place via signed waiver at your next policy renewal.