97-131. Creation.

(a) There is created a nonprofit unincorporated legal entity to be known as the North Carolina Self-Insurance Security Association. The Association is to provide mechanisms for the payment of covered claims against member self-insurers, to avoid excessive delay in payment of covered claims, to avoid financial loss to claimants because of the insolvency of a member self-insurer, to assist the Commissioner in the detection of self-insurer insolvencies, to fund the Association Aggregate Security System, and to capitalize the Fund to ensure the availability of financial resources to pay covered claims and to fund the activities of the Association.

(b) All individual self-insurers and group self-insurers shall be and remain members of the Association as a condition of being licensed to self-insure in this State. The Association shall perform its functions under a Plan of Operation established or amended, or both, by the Board and shall exercise its powers through the Board.

(1) An individual self-insurer or a group self-insurer shall be deemed to be a member of the Association for purposes of another member's insolvency, as defined in G.S. 97-135, when:

a. The individual self-insurer or group self-insurer is a member of the Association when an insolvency occurs, or

b. The individual self-insurer or group self-insurer has been a member of the Association at some point in time during the 12-month period immediately preceding the insolvency in question.

(2) An individual self-insurer or a group self-insurer shall be deemed to be a member of the Association for purposes of its own insolvency if it is a member when the compensable injury occurs.

(3) In determining the membership of the Association for the purposes of subdivisions (1) and (2) of this subsection for any date after the effective date of this Article, no individual self-insurer or group self-insurer may be deemed to be a member of the Association on any date after the effective date of this Article, unless that employer is on that date licensed as an individual self-insurer by the Commissioner under Article 5 of this Chapter or a group of employers is at that time licensed as a group self-insurer by the Commissioner under Article 47 of Chapter 58 of the General Statutes.