Stop Gap Coverage: Employer's Liability for NEMT Companies in Ohio, Washington, North Dakota, and Wyoming

What stop gap coverage pays for

A standard workers’ comp policy has two parts. The California Department of Insurance’s commercial insurance guide (Form 700, revised June 14, 2024) describes Part One as the benefits state law owes an injured worker. Part Two, employer’s liability, protects you when an employee’s injury can still be the subject of a lawsuit. The guide’s examples are a third party over action, a spouse’s loss of consortium claim, a dual capacity claim, and consequential bodily injury.

Four states sell workers’ comp only through a state fund: Ohio, Washington, North Dakota, and Wyoming. Washington’s L&I says the state allows no private workers’ comp, so you buy from L&I unless you are a certified self-insured employer. Washington’s Department of Enterprise Services notes that North Dakota, Ohio, and Wyoming also bar private insurers from covering in-state workers. North Dakota’s Workforce Safety and Insurance (WSI) says the same of itself, and Ohio law has employers pay into the state fund unless they self-insure (Ohio Revised Code 4123.35) and voids private contracts that insure an employer’s compensation costs (section 4123.82).

The state fund is not employer’s liability insurance. WSI says so directly: its coverage letter, posted July 2026, says its coverage does not include general or employers’ liability insurance. In the other three states, public contracts treat stop gap as the way to get it. King County, Washington accepts the stop gap endorsement to a general liability policy in states with monopolistic state funds, and the Wyoming Department of Transportation has its highway contractors get workers’ comp from the state and stop gap on their general liability policy. Washington’s Department of Enterprise Services buys stop gap from a private insurer for state employees working in North Dakota, Ohio, and Wyoming, and its FAQ (August 2023) says it pays defense costs and damages when a third party sues over an employee’s work injury.

Your other policies do not fill the hole. The standard general liability form (CG 00 01 04 13) excludes bodily injury to your employee that comes from the job, and to the employee’s spouse, child, parent, brother, or sister because of it. The exclusion applies whether you are sued as the employer or in any other role, and it reaches any duty to share or repay damages that someone else owes. The standard business auto form (CA 00 01 10 13) carries the same kind of exclusion. Stop gap gives back that one piece.

How it works on a Washington ride

Your driver is unloading a rider at a dialysis center in Spokane when the lift platform drops, and she tears her shoulder. L&I pays her medical care and part of her lost wages. In most cases she cannot sue your company, because Washington took those claims out of the courts (RCW 51.04.010). She can sue the lift maker, a third person outside your company (RCW 51.24.030).

The lift maker then names your company in the case, blaming your maintenance or your training. That is a third party over action. Whether a claim like that can succeed against an employer is a question for your lawyer, but your company still has to answer it. L&I does not defend you, and your general liability insurer points to the employee injury exclusion. With stop gap on your policy, the insurer defends you and pays any damages up to the stop gap limit, under the endorsement’s terms. Without it, the lawyer and any judgment are yours to pay. Because this injury happened on the lift, check that your endorsement does not carry over the general liability form’s auto exclusion, which counts loading and unloading as use of the van.

One narrow give-back sits in the general liability form itself. The employee injury exclusion does not apply to liability you take on under an insured contract, which includes an agreement where you assume another party’s liability for injury to a third person. Ask your agent how your broker agreement’s indemnity promise fits that definition before you count on it.

Who asks for stop gap, and at what limit

Contracts in these states ask for employer’s liability by limit, and a stop gap endorsement is how you meet it.

• Hamilton County, Ohio. Hamilton County Job and Family Services’ request for proposals for Medicaid non-emergency transportation (KB05-25R, December 2025) asks for workers’ comp at Ohio’s statutory limits plus employer’s liability of at least $1,000,000 per accident for bodily injury or disease.
• home52, southwest Ohio. This Council on Aging of Southwestern Ohio subsidiary, which coordinates rides across contracted transportation companies, asks its providers for employers or stop gap liability of $1,000,000 and a current workers’ comp certificate, and asks the same insurance of their subcontractors (requirements, October 2023 version).
• Wyoming Department of Transportation. Its prime contractors on highway projects get workers’ comp through the Department of Workforce Services and endorse their general liability policy with stop gap of at least $500,000 per employee for each accident and each disease (contractor requirements as of October 2026).
• King County, Washington. Public Health contracts, as of October 2026, ask contractors with employees for $1,000,000 each occurrence, at least as broad as Part Two of a workers’ comp policy or, in state fund states, the stop gap endorsement to the general liability policy.
• Paratransit Services, Washington. This Medicaid ride broker’s insurance requirements for subcontractors (modified April 22, 2024) list general liability, auto, professional liability, and breach coverage, plus a copy of your L&I certificate, with no employer’s liability limit.

Outside these four states, employer’s liability comes on the workers’ comp policy itself. The $1,000,000 limits that Arizona and Texas health plans set are in workers’ comp for NEMT. The state fund basics for each of the four states are on the Ohio, Washington, North Dakota, and Wyoming guides.

North Dakota: what WSI puts on paper

WSI is a state agency, so it issues no written policy. Its terms live in North Dakota statutes and rules, and it gives you a Certificate of Payment that shows your account is in good standing. Its coverage letter lists what it will not do:

• It will not waive its rights of subrogation.
• It will not list additional insureds on your account.
• It will not allow alternate employment endorsements.
• Its coverage includes no general or employers’ liability insurance.

Coverage does not lapse on your renewal date. It runs until the account is closed, and WSI sends a formal notice of uninsured status only when an account is significantly delinquent. When a contract asks for a waiver of subrogation or an additional insured on your workers’ comp, send WSI’s letter with your Certificate of Payment and your stop gap certificate, and ask the contract holder to accept them. Anyone can confirm your standing with WSI’s Employer Search tool, and WSI answers questions at 800-777-5033.

What stop gap will not cover

Stop gap forms are not standard, so read the exclusions. In Ohio, state law also limits what any policy may cover. Ohio Revised Code 4123.82 voids any insurance that pays an employer’s damages when an injury comes from breaking a safety requirement or from the employer’s willful act. Ohio employers that pay into the state fund are immune from employee injury suits (section 4123.74), but section 2745.01 still allows an intentional tort case when the employee proves the employer acted with deliberate intent to cause the injury. Deliberately removing an equipment safety guard creates a presumption of that intent when an injury results.

Washington has a similar opening. A worker injured by the employer’s deliberate intention to injure may take L&I benefits and also sue the employer for damages above them (RCW 51.24.020). Ask your agent whether your stop gap endorsement defends a suit like that.

How to add stop gap coverage

1. Ask your general liability agent for a stop gap endorsement for each state fund state where you have employees. WYDOT and King County both describe it as an endorsement to the general liability policy.
2. Match the limits to your highest contract ask in all three parts: each accident, disease for each employee, and disease for the policy.
3. Ask for wording at least as broad as Part Two of a standard workers’ comp policy, the test King County uses, and ask whether it covers a driver hurt on the lift or in the van.
4. Use your other workers’ comp policy if you have one. If you carry a private policy for drivers in another state, ask whether stop gap can go on it instead. Washington’s state agencies get theirs that way.
5. Send the proof together. Give each contract holder a certificate that shows the stop gap limits, plus your L&I, BWC, WSI, or DWS proof of workers’ comp. See NEMT insurance requirements for the rest of what brokers check.