Comp Cover Now Available for N.D.’s Interstate Workers

At a news conference last week, Workforce Safety & Insurance CEO Sandy Blunt announced that North Dakota employers can now purchase a workers’ compensation policy to cover their employees who work temporarily outside the state. In partnership with the Michigan-based Accident Fund Insurance Company of America, WSI will sell a policy that covers all an employers’ workers who must travel out of state on a temporary or incidental basis.

The annual premium is $600. The coverage is meant to address what has been “an ongoing issue for over 30 years,” according to Blunt. The state legislature passed a law allowing WSI to offer the coverage, which is aimed at helping businesses along the Red River Valley that often go back and forth between North Dakota and Minnesota.

Benefiting from the new coverage will be companies that do business outside of North Dakota and across the country into other states on a temporary basis, according to a statement from WSI.

WSI negotiated the coverage with the Accident Fund Insurance Company of America through insurance broker Palmer & Cay. North Dakota employers who elect to purchase the coverage will receive an Accident Fund insurance certificate for their workers. In the past there has been a lot of confusion for North Dakota employers who have employees working temporarily or incidentally in other states. This new program with the Accident Fund Insurance Company of America will provide a solution to that difficulty.

North Dakota employers with active accounts in good standing may purchase the All States’ coverage that will cover all of an operation’s employees for a flat rate of $600 per year. Once accepted by WSI, this insurance provides coverage for incidental or temporary work outside the state. If the employer or worker generates more than 25 percent of its business or wages in any other state, the employer must still obtain separate workers’ compensation coverage in that other state. Coverage is excluded in the monopoly states of Ohio, West Virginia, Washington and Wyoming.

Information and applications are available on the WSI Web site.