The West Virginia Office of the Insurance Commissioner (OIC) published a bulletin announcing a new policy of destroying closed workers’ comp claim files that are 10 years old or older.

The bulletin notes that these files contain a significant amount of PII and PHI, and that given increasing cybersecurity concerns, the OIC has deemed the risk of continued electronic storage of closed claim files beyond the agency’s approved retention and disposal schedule to outweigh the benefit of continued retention.

The OIC does not believe that claim files which have been closed for ten (10) years or longer are essential state records. Additionally, these files are generally exempted from the Freedom of Information Act.