When was the last time you spoke with an employment attorney to assess if your business is in proper compliance with the Wage and Hour Law? When was the last time you spoke with an insurance advisor to make sure your business has purchased workers’ compensation insurance? If it’s been more than a year since you had either of these conversations, the below information might make you speed-dial your advisors.
The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) recently announced an initiative to add 100 investigators to its Wage and Hour Division (WHD)—a potential sign to employers that increased enforcement may be on the horizon. The WHD is tasked with enforcing comprehensive labor laws that affect more than 148 million workers.
This means employers should continue to review relevant workplace laws to ensure wage and hour compliance. Common violations include worker misclassification, unpaid overtime, tip theft, insufficient break periods and failure to provide protected leave.
Our team at Strate has recently seen crackdowns from the Tennessee Department of Labor to ensure businesses are purchasing workers’ compensation insurance. This is especially affecting small business owners.
The TN DOL team working on this initiative isn’t accepting Certificates of Insurance as proof. They are asking for declaration pages from the insurance policy—the true evidence of insurance.
As a reminder, Tennessee law states that businesses with five or more full-time employees must purchase workers’ compensation insurance. This includes the owners of the business. If you are in the construction industry, you must purchase workers’ compensation insurance even if you have one employee (unless they are specifically exempted).
If you have questions or concerns about this crackdown from the DOL and how it might affect your business insurance, give our team a call at 423-318-5800.
