The Construction Business Group on Tuesday announced that a bipartisan effort between Governor Evers and the Wisconsin Legislature led to a $33,000 insurance fraud forfeiture. The Office of the Commissioner of Insurance (OCI) was given authority to investigate acts of insurance fraud as part of the 2023 Wisconsin state budget, which was passed by the Republican-controlled legislature and signed into law by Democratic Governor Tony Evers. The fraud forfeiture came after an OCI investigation led to the discovery of a Milwaukee-area business that misrepresented itself to its workers’ compensation insurer, resulting in over $100,000 in underpayments.
According to an OCI press release, “Sawan Kumar owns a transportation service in the Milwaukee area but represented his business as a clerical dispatch business on his application to his workers’ compensation insurer. As a result, he paid much lower insurance premiums than he should have been. Between 2016 and 2022, he continued to make various misrepresentations to his insurer that resulted in $101,690 underpayments. OCI issued a fraud forfeiture under our new statutory authority resulting in a total of $33,000. Forfeitures like these go to the state’s Common School Fund, which provides books, computers, and other library materials to schools across Wisconsin.”
