Insurance for South Carolina Train Victims

Legal advisers shut down a South Carolina fund proposed by Spartanburg County leaders and Gov. Nikki Haley’s office that would have paid medical bills for dozens of people hurt by a children’s train ride crash, according to a newspaper report.

After reviewing emails released under a public records request, the Herald-Journal of Spartanburg reported that organizers stopped the effort after a state Insurance Reserve Fund attorney said the plan could make the county uninsurable.

Twenty-seven people were injured and a 6-year-old boy was killed March 19 when the train ride hurtled off its rails at Spartanburg’s Cleveland Park. The official cause of the crash is still under investigation, and a state employee who admitted falsifying an inspection report days before the crash has been fired.

Local leaders proposed that the county and Haley’s office each put $1 million into a fund to pay medical bills for the injured people.

“I cannot believe these families are having to worry about insurance issues on top of everything else they are dealing with,” Councilman David Britt wrote in one email. “I think we need to step up now and meet with them and let them know we will take care of these medical bills. This is our responsibility.”

Under state law, there is a $600,000 total limit to pay any claims they submitted to pay for bills and other expenses related to the crash. The emails show that officials were preparing to announce the fund to cover co-pays and deductibles for people injured. But Britt said that an attorney with the state Insurance Reserve Fund nixed the plan, saying that such a fund would make the county uninsurable and make taxpayers liable for millions of dollars now and in the future.

Topics South Carolina