Senate Bill 189 (SB 189) amended Sections 3351 and 3352 of the California Labor Code, allowing more corporate officers, and/or directors and owners of professional corporations to waive workers’ compensation insurance coverage.
The following summarizes the SB 189 changes, effective July 1, 2018:
- Corporations: The stock ownership requirement for exclusion eligibility for officers and directors is reduced from 15 percent to 10 percent. Additionally, an officer or director with at least one percent ownership who is also a direct relative of an officer or director with at least 10 percent is eligible for exclusion.
- Licensed Professional Corporations: Owners of businesses who practice a licensed profession and who have health insurance coverage are eligible for exclusion.
- Trusts: A trustee or grantor of a trust is eligible for exclusion if s/he is an employee of the Corp, LLC, or Partnership in which the trust has an ownership stake and s/he is eligible to elect exclusion as an officer, managing-member, or general partner of those entities.
- Cooperative Corporations: To be eligible for exclusion, SB 189 requires the policyholder have a disability policy that is comparable to workers’ compensation coverage as determined by the California Department of Insurance (CDI). Currently CDI has not identified any insurance product on the market that meets this requirement.