State Compensation Insurance Fund
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The State Compensation Insurance Fund (SCIF or State Fund) is a workers' compensation insurer that is operated by the U.S. state of California. It is required by state law to maintain its headquarters in San Francisco, but has branch offices all over the state.
State Fund has over $9.2 billion in assets and employs between 8,000 and 10,000 people (the number fluctuates wildly based on State Fund's current percentage of the market). Depending upon the health of California's workers' compensation market, it insures anywhere from 20 percent of the workforce in good years to over 50 percent in bad years. It insures practically all state employees as well as the majority of employees in high-risk industries which private insurers will simply not cover, like construction.
California is one of 12 states that operates a competitive state fund in the workers' compensation insurance market. In general, state funds like SCIF are intended to serve as insurers of last resort and to act as an example for private companies. However, to keep them from crowding out private companies, they operate as nonprofits and must return surplus money to policyholders after paying off claims and operating costs. They also cannot write any other kind of insurance, so unlike private companies they cannot offer comprehensive insurance packages.
External links
- [http://www.scif.com/] - Official site
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