I looked at this issue for our strata a couple of years ago. My findings, as best as I remember, were:
Insurance: as long as the strata doesn’t make payments over a certain threshold a year (back then it was around $7,500) there is no need to have a workers compensation policy. As for other insurance as long as the strata did not know and ignore safety issues the general strata insurance should cover anything else.
Payment to the owner: as long as payment is made only after work is done and is not excessive for the work done payment is ok. I think payment needed to be minuted, declared and ratified at the next held AGM.