OUR ROOTS RUN DEEP
Established in 1995, the South Carolina Home Builders Self Insurers Fund is an organization of South Carolina homebuilders who joined together to provide a stable, cost-effective, and secure source for workers' compensation coverage for the construction industry.
Self-Insured Funds Cover a Large Segment of South Carolina's Working Population
About 30% of all SC workers compensation coverage is provided by self-insured funds. The vast majority of South Carolina municipalities and county governments use this method to cover their workers, as do many large corporate and private entities. Regardless of the size of your operation, you can take advantage of this type of coverage through SCHBSIF.
Splitting Payroll between Class Codes
Unlike stock and mutual insurance carriers, SCHBSIF can split properly documented payroll between different class codes. This allows our policyholders to apply payroll for employees to the work they are actually doing as opposed to automatically being applied to the highest rate class code regardless of amount of work performed in that capacity. While certain restrictions do apply, this generally drives down your overall workers’ compensation coverage costs.
More Latitude in Coverage Offerings than Stock and Mutual Carriers
SCHBSIF, while using NCCI as guidelines where appropriate, does not have to follow NCCI rules as required for stock and mutual insurance carriers. This allows us to tailor our operations and products to focus specifically on the needs of those in the construction industry, commercial and residential, whether you’re a general contractor or a subcontractor. This can result in considerable savings in workers’ compensation coverage premiums.
True Flexibility
Pay-As-You-Go Premiums
The construction industry has both cycles and seasons. Some months are busy while others are quiet. Why should you have to pay the same premium in the quiet months as you do the busy ones? You don’t have to. With SCHBSIF, you can elect to pay your premiums based directly on your prior month’s payroll. When you’re working and cash flow is good, you pay the appropriate amount of premium on your policy based on your payroll. When things are slow, your reported payroll is less and so is your premium. While each policy has a minimum annual premium, in the months when you have absolutely no payroll, you can simply submit your payroll report and not owe any premium for that month provided you have met the annual minimum premium requirement.
Financial Stability
The Board of Trustees takes very seriously their obligation to maintain the financial integrity of the fund. SCHBSIF is regulated by the South Carolina Workers’ Compensation Commission (SCWCC), Division of Self Insurance Services, pursuant to Title 42 of the South Carolina Code of Laws and all applicable regulations. Our controller oversees all aspects of financial management with the guidance of the fund administrator and the Board of Trustees. Our financial records are reviewed annually by an independent financial auditor and the results are provided to SCWCC for their review and approval.
Our controller also works in conjunction other departments to maintain the fund’s financial integrity through day-to-day operations including loss prevention services provided by Risk Control and Safety, liability management provided by Claims and prospective policyholder screening by Underwriting as well as accounts receivable management by Policy Services.
Liberal Interpretation of Executive Supervisor Class Code
NCCI requires a secondary layer of supervision between an executive supervisor and workers to qualify for the executive supervisor class code. Smaller construction operations cannot qualify for this coverage under a stock or mutual fund carrier of their operational structure. To help our policyholders, we have two executive supervisor class codes; one that matches the NCCI rule and offers the lowest premium and one that removes the middle-layer requirement for true supervisors who do not have the buffering layer at a slightly higher rate. Whereas a stock or mutual insurance company would classify the second type of supervisor under one of the same class codes assigned to the worker because of the lack of middle layer supervisor, we can offer our policyholders a rate more consistent with the risk.
Governance by Trustees from the Construction Industry
SCHBSIF is governed by a board of trustees who come from within the South Carolina construction industry. They aren’t bankers or white collar executives. They are construction industry business owners who understand your business including its special needs and pressures. Each trustee has decades of experience doing what you do. They know both boom and lean times. They understand the unique aspects of your business whereas a stock or mutual carrier might not. Unlike a board of directors in a tall, shiny building in lower Manhattan, each trustee has his fingers directly on the pulse of South Carolina’s construction industry as they live it day in and day out.