California governor signs bill to delay comp mandate for contractors

California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Sunday signed a bill delaying by two years the implementation of a universal workers compensation coverage requirement for all contractors.

S.B. 1455 includes a provision requiring the Contractors State License Board to bolster its efforts to verify that a licensee has no employees and postpones until Jan. 1, 2028, the requirement that all contractors carry comp coverage even if they don’t have any employees.

According to analyses of the bill, the licensing board has determined that implementing the coverage requirement from a similar bill that passed in 2022 would be more difficult and more expensive than initially estimated.

That previous bill, S.B. 216, mandated comp coverage for certain contractors even if they don’t have workers and applied to concrete, HVAC, asbestos abatement and tree service contractors.

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