World Renowned Animal Rescue Sanctuary Calls On Other Non-profits And Businesses To Stand Against Fraudulent Workman's Compensation Claims

Acton, CA, October 31, 2014 (Newswire.com) - One of the most respected and well established animal rescue sanctuaries in the world has found itself victim of rampant abuse of workman's compensation claims. In July 2009, D.E.L.T.A. Rescue, the world's largest no-kill, care for life animal sanctuary, paid a yearly premium of $165,000 for workman's compensation. As of October 2014, the non-profit's premium has nearly tripled, and now exceeds $470,000 per year.

D.E.L.T.A. Rescue is currently suing Zenith Insurance Company, its former carrier, for its practices. D.E.L.T.A. Rescue employees were required to go to doctors in the insurer's approved network, as otherwise cases and injuries can be inflated, but they did not. For example, Dr. Jalil Rashti of Encino, California handled many of the cases even though he is not one of Zenith's approved doctors, and in effect helped set up a system where the insurance company found it cheaper to settle rather than fully explore claims with red flags and prosecute them as promised.

Beginning in 2009, several former D.E.L.T.A Rescue employees were encouraged by a small group of attorneys to file false claims. The main pattern was a referral to Dr. Rashti for many post-termination claims, many of which were highly subjective and fraught with fraudulent elements. This resulted in inflated claims, which in turn caused D.E.L.T.A. Rescue's premium to rise dramatically.

In 2009, D.E.L.T.A. Rescue was persuaded by its commercial insurance liability broker to switch its worker's compensation carrier from State Fund to Zenith based on promises of cheaper premiums due to better vetting of claims by Zenith's supposedly aggressive "special investigations" anti-fraud unit. In actuality, Zenith only paid lip service to the red flags, settled most of the claims without input from D.E.L.T.A. Rescue, and then cancelled its contract because D.E.L.T.A. Rescue complained about the fraud. After Zenith was sued by D.E.L.T.A. Rescue, the charity learned that Zenith had finally referred a case to public agencies for investigation and prosecution of fraud when D.E.L.T.A. Rescue received a call from a Department of Insurance Fraud investigator. (It is a felony for anyone to make a material misrepresentation to obtain money in an insurance claim.)

"This is an outrageous situation," said D.E.L.T.A. Rescue founder Leo Grillo. "These lawyers actually look for unscrupulous former employees, find doctors who will intentionally exaggerate injuries and even conspire to falsify medical reports, and Zenith pays them because they can simply pass those payments on to us as increased premiums. It's the biggest game in town. We are mandated by the government to carry insurance, and yet the carriers do not comply with their mandate to defend us against fraud. On top of everything else, as the minimum wage rises, so now does our insurance premium. I don't know how we can survive between this rock and a hard place. It's easy to understand why so many businesses are fleeing California, but in our case, we can't even do that both for the costs involved, and also the horrible stress it would put on our 1500 animals."