A Massachusetts construction firm owner fraudulently misclassified subcontractors as siding workers or painters when they were performing riskier roofi
ng work in order to avoid paying higher workers’ compensation premiums, according to the Massachusetts attorney general’s office (AGO).
Massachusetts officials said that Edwin Santiago Bueno of Milford was indicted by a Worcester grand jury. He is scheduled to be arraigned in the Worcester Superior Court on July 14, 2026.
By misclassifying his workers between June 2020 and May 2023, the owner allegedly evaded
approximately $20,194 in workers’ compensation premiums owed to Ace American Insurance Co., which is administered by Travelers Insurance Co.
According to the officials, Bueno owned and operated ESB Construction, Inc., a Milford-based construction company. As the owner, Bueno was responsible for providing workers’ compensation insurance for all employees and uninsured subcontractors.
Upon discovering Bueno’s misclassification, Travelers notified the Insurance Fraud Bureau of Massachusetts (IFB), which confirmed that ESB had been performing
roofing work while Bueno classified his subcontractors under other, less expensive categories.
Bueno faces four counts of workers’ compensation insurance fraud and one count of larceny over $1,200.
All of the charges are allegations, and Bueno’s is presumed innocent until proven guilty.
You must see to it that we are notified as soon as practicable of an “occurrence” or an offense, regardless of the amount, which may result in a claim.
If a claim is made or “suit” is brought against any insured, you must: Immediately record the specifics of the claim or “suit” and the date received; and Notify us as soon as practicable.
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You must see to it that we receive written notice of the claim or “suit” as soon as practicable.
In the first sentence, we immediately learn that there’s no such thing as a claim that “isn’t that bad” when it comes to this coverage form. It wants to know whenever something comes up that may result in a claim. The amount of the pot
ential claim doesn’t matter. It also doesn’t seem to matter whether or not there’s an actual claim. The wording tells us that the offense or occurrence may result in a claim.
In the second sentence, we learn that when a claim is made against any insured, this policy also wants the company to be notified immediately. This may seem l
ike a restatement of what we’ve already seen, but the difference comes from who received notice of the potential claim. In the first sentence, the claim was received by “y
ou,” which is specific to the named insured. In the second sentence, the claim was received by any insured, which is a much broader term.
This forces us to look back at the Who Is An Insured section to discover who the policy considers an insured. We will leave that to you to read later, but everyone
who qualifies as an insured according to that section could be given notice of a claim. This is also a remind
er that an additional insured is an insured, and when that additional insured receives notice of a claim, this policy wants to know that, too.
The last sentence restates something that we’ve seen three times now: The policy wants to know about any claim as soon as is practicable. According to
the Cambridge Dictionary Online, practicable means able to be done or put into action. That’s a good definition, but it is open to interpretation, which means that there may be disagreement about when something is practicable.
