Texas licenses its first captive
- The Texas Captive Insurance Association licensed CART Assurance Company as its first captive insurer, a structure many businesses use to self-insure risks including workers’’ compensation, after the company successfully re-domiciled from Arizona to Texas and received the state’s first Certificate of Authority to operate as a captive.
- CART president Irving Pozmantier praised Texas captive regulators for balancing oversight with support, saying the department’s captive team offered full cooperation, thoughtful suggestions, and flexible regulation from the company’s first meeting onward.
- Texas amended its state law in 2013 to allow licensing of captives that insure the risks of parent companies, affiliates and controlled unaffiliated businesses, as well as to permit redomestication of captives from other states.
- Since the law change, several companies have opted to redomicile their captives to Texas, with additional applications currently nearing approval at the TxCIA.
Brewery’s Collapse Included an $84,000 Workers’ Comp Judgment
- New York’s Workers’ Compensation Board obtained an $84,000 default judgment against Fifth Frame Brewing on July 31, after finding the Rochester brewery operated without required workers’ compensation insurance from April 30, 2025 through June 23.
- The Board assessed the penalty for the coverage lapse and moved to judgment after the brewery failed to pay within 30 days of demand. It filed affirmations of non-payment with the Monroe County Clerk on July 30 before the judgment was entered the next day.
- Skipping workers’ comp coverage let Fifth Frame avoid a routine cost of doing business that competitors are legally required to carry, even as the company continued borrowing and operating.
- Records show a $591,200 SBA-backed loan from Five Star Bank (now the subject of a $169,528.10 default claim against the brewery and its personal guarantors), a $140,533.13 landlord dispute with REO Holdings, an $18,204.84 American Express claim, and a $32,045.82 default judgment from supplier Crosby Hop Farm.
Border Officer’s Psych Injury Claim Denied
- The Workers’ Compensation Appeal Tribunal in British Columbia dismissed a border services officer’s psychological injury claim on June 23, upholding the Workers’ Compensation Board’s original denial after the officer said a tense encounter with a traveler flagged as “armed and dangerous,” combined with a delayed post-incident debrief, caused him compensable stress.
- WCAT vice chair Christopher Ramsay found the worker’s evidence fell short of the legal threshold for a compensable mental disorder, noting the Workers Compensation Act requires diagnosis by a psychiatrist or psychologist under current diagnostic criteria, and that the encounter itself was a routine part of the job rather than traumatic.
- The workers superintendent countered the worker’s assertions saying the traveler was cooperative, no weapon was found and no force was used.
- Additionally, Ramsay found the employer’s decision to investigate the officer’s handling of the encounter (tied to the traveler’s outstanding warrant) was a legitimate, good-faith management function rather than retaliation.