Building Industry Association of Washington

The Building Industry Association of Washington or BIAW is a Washington State section 501(c) non-profit organization formed in 1966 to represent the housing industry in the state of Washington against government interests to regulate their trades. BIAW's membership comprises about 7,735 member companies, home builders, trade contractors, suppliers and industry professionals.

Their mission statement is as follows:

The Building Industry Association of Washington is the voice of the housing industry in the state of Washington. The association is dedicated to ensuring and enhancing the vitality of the building industry for the benefit of its members and the housing needs of the citizens. To accomplish this purpose, the association's primary focus is to educate, influence and affect the legislative, regulatory, judicial and executive agencies of Washington's government. The Building Industry Association of Washington will offer its membership those services which can best be provided on a state wide basis and will disseminate information concerning the building industry to all association members and the public.

BIAW is the 3rd largest state association affiliated with the National Association of Home Builders. The BIAW wants lower taxes and fewer regulations, particularly environmental ones. The association wants to be a counterweight to unions and their allies that have helped keep the governor's office in Democratic hands since the 1984 election.

The main source of the BIAW's political money is the state Department of Labor and Industries' Retrospective Rating Program, known as Return on Industrial Insurance Program or Retro. Through Retro, participating employers can recover a portion of their workers' compensation premiums if they are able to reduce injury rates and lower associated claim costs. Of the 40-some Retro programs in the state, BIAW has the largest. BIAW's Retro group has about 1,600 member companies. The BIAW collects 20 percent of the workers' compensation refunds provided by the state of which ten percent goes to BIAW and ten percent goes to local associations. This translates into about $3–4 million from the refunds in each of the past few years. In 2009, a computer programming error was uncovered that resulted in the Dept. of L&I refunding $10 million to $15 million more per year more than they were supposed to for the last fifteen years.

BIAW-MSC was set up in order to manage the Retro program. BIAW Member Services Corporation (BIAW-MSC) is a wholly owned for-profit subsidiary of BIAW formed in 1993. BIAW-MSC also sells insurance and runs educational programs.

In 2008, the BIAW contributed to Dino Rossi for governor. More than $7 million provided by the BIAW was spent on ads. Rossi's top contributor was the BIAW.

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