[Dueller]

I did a cursory search of Michigan WC law and found that if you had 3 or more full time employees, you are required to have WC insurance. It is a criminal viloation not to do so. I did not get a chance to reasearch whether you could self insure but most jurisdictions it is not permitted per se.

I have worked on both sides of the fence; i.e., I've represented employers/carriers as well as claimants. Forgive me if I sound like a law school professor but it might help you to put up with the system as flawed as it is if you understand the public policy behind WC law.

WC laws first began appearing in this country in the 19th century when our society began moving from a primarily agrarian society to a more industrialized nation. Under early common law, there was what was called the "master Servant rule." Simply put a servant (employee) could not sue their master (employer). While you might want to move back to this rule as an employer, it often resulted in serious inequities for the working class. Even if an employer was grossly negligent employees were essentially powerless to recover for injuries arising in the course and scope of their employment. Where a person injured on the family farm might be taken care of by their family in the event of an injury, the employee of a company might be cast aside if the corporate "family" was not so altruistic.

Lawmakers were faced with a dilemma...it was not fair for workers to have no recourse for injuries on the job and it wasn't fair to abolish master servant rules since an employee who was seriously injured or killed in the course of their employment could sue the employer into bankruptcy. Modern WC laws are an effort to strike a balance between these two competing interests.

In simple terms the employer limits his liability to WC recovery guidelines and in exchange the worker does not have an onerous burden of proving negligence by the employer. This prevents an employee from suing his employer into insolvency. For example: in my jurisdiction the maximum benefit payable for a person killed on the job is about $150K under WC law. If I, as employer, remove safety devices from a machine to speed up the work and an employee is killed because of my negligent actions, the employee's survivors are limited to $150K (notwithstanding OSHA regs, etc...not a perfect example but you get my point). If the employer does not have WC coverage, then the employee is NOT limited under WC limits....that is one of main the things your hefty premiums are paying for.

Like I said at the outset I've worked on boith sides of the fence. Insurance companies can be unreasonable with their premiums/refusal to pay legitimate claims as can malingering employees who intentionally injure themselves to get on the dole. Not a perfect system but its what we got.

In any event to just ignore the requirement of WC coverage opens you up to serious exposure....Michigan law specifically states if you do not maintain coverge when required, you will be personally liable for injuries and not subject to the caps afforded by the law. Think about it....suppose you send an employee out to make a pick up for the shop. An uninsured, insolvent drunk driver plows into him and employee is paralyzed from the waste down. Sure it was the drunks fault. But theemployee was on a mission for the shop in the course of his employment. You wanna pay for that outta your back pocket? Or even something less dramatic...a machine falls on an employee and he breaks his leg requiring surgery. He is excpected to recover fully in 6 months with physical therapy. We're talking a $100 K easily in med bills. $25K begins to sound like a bargain.