Founder & President
Oshacomp, Llc.
San Diego, Ca
OshaComp was an OSHA workplace compliance service. Our exclusive partnership with Superior National Insurance of Calabasas, CA., (the largest underwriter of workers compensation insurance following the deregulation of the California State Fund), provided small businesses with mandated location specific written safety manuals and on-site training of employees in the areas of; bloodborne pathogens, Lockout/Tagout, etc.So, why did OshaComp fail after so much fanfare and initial success? Since OshaComp was developed to provide the safety compliance and training for all of Superior's clients, OshaComp was dependent upon Superior's ability to reduce worker's comp premiums after safety training was completed and the reduction of X-Mod factors were realized.Why did Superior fail? With its acquisition of Business Insurance Group (BIG) in 1998, Superior more than tripled its direct in-force premium and emerged as California’s largest private sector workers’ compensation provider. With $669 million of in-force premium, and access to Zurich Reinsurance Centre Holdings Inc. (Zurich), one of the world’s largest insurance enterprises, Superior had a big competitive advantage. With more than $210 million of protection, Superior was free to focus on transitioning to the future. A reserve guarantee of almost 40% of BIG’s carried reserves certainly seemed like reasonable assurance. As the guarantee was made by Inter-Ocean Reinsurance Co., management could be assured that the reinsurer, as an independent party, had put their stamp of approval on the reserves. It would ultimately be their money on the line if they were wrong. In fact, they were wrong. The magnitude of the error was such that Inter-Ocean became convinced misrepresentation had occurred and, as a result, attempted to rescind the contract.On March 3, 2000, California Insurance Commissioner Charles Quackenbush ordered the seizure of Superior, the second largest provider of workers’ compensation in the state.
