CRM Offers Workers’ Comp Self-Insurance to Calif. Winery Workers

Irvine, Calif.-based Compensation Risk Managers of California, LLC has announced that it has received final regulatory approval for the Vintners and Independent Producers Self Insurance Program of California, a new self-insurance group program that CRM has custom-designed to cover winery workers in California.

Compensation Risk Managers developed the new program to help control the high-costs of mandated Workers’ Compensation Insurance for vintners in the five major winery areas in California – Napa/Sonoma, San Jose, Central Coast, San Diego and Central Valley. The group is the sixth program that CRM has launched in California since it began operating in the state in 2003.

“We at E. Paul Stychno Insurance are very proud to offer this innovative VIPSIP program to the wine growers who are so vitally important to the economy of California,” stated Paul Stychno, managing general agent for the group.

Group self-insurance programs, such as VIPSIP, unite employers of a particular industry to provide statutory workers’ compensation benefits to their employees. In California, these plans are closely regulated by the Department of Industrial Relations, Office of Self Insurance Plans. Member contributions provide funding for claims and expenses, and members also own 100 percent of group surplus funds, including interest income. As program manager, CRM provides underwriting, loss control and administration.

“As one of the initial members of this new program, we are excited by the potential for reliable, safe, cost-effective coverage for our employees,” said Peter Seghesio of Seghesio Wineries in Healdsburg, one of four core members of the new program. “We look to Vintners and Independent Producers Self Insurance Program of California to benefit both our employees and our bottom line.”

As with its five other groups in California, CRM coordinates third-party claims administration services for the new program, plus providing independent accounting, actuarial and legal services. To create group stability, CRM individually underwrites each member.