Latest Workers' Compensation Headlines
All the headlines from our Workers' Compensation Topic Page, ordered by recency.
California Division of Workers’ Comp Issues Revised Drug Formulary Regulations
Jul 18 2017 // The California Division of Workers’ Compensation has issued modified proposed regulations to adopt the medical treatment utilization schedule drug formulary. The proposed rulemaking implements Assembly Bill 1124,...
Idaho Manure Pond Deaths Raise Concerns About Farmworker Safety
Jul 18 2017 // It was still dark the morning Ruperto Vazquez-Carrera began his shift at Sunrise Organic Dairy in Idaho. It was mid-February 2016. A winter heat wave had melted snow and ice overnight, flooding part of the rural Jerome...
California Department of Workers’ Comp Says 441K-plus Lien Declarations Filed
Jul 17 2017 // The California Division of Workers’ Compensation is reporting that 441,070 supplemental lien declaration forms were filed. This amount represents half of the 882,648 liens filed in California’s workers’...
California Workers’ Comp Medical Review Runs Through 13K Disputes Each Month
Jul 14 2017 // A new progress report from the California Department of Industrial Relations on the department’s independent medical review program shows that 13,000 decisions run through the medical dispute resolution process each...
Feds Fine Exxon $165K over Explosion, Worker Injuries Louisiana Oil Refinery
Jul 13 2017 // ExxonMobil Corp. has been fined about $165,000 by U.S. regulators for safety lapses including inadequate training and equipment maintenance over an explosion that injured four workers at an aging Baton Rouge, Louisiana,...
Connecticut Firefighter Fired After Workers’ Compensation Investigation
Jul 13 2017 // A Connecticut fire chief says a firefighter has been fired following an investigation into alleged workers’ compensation fraud. In a statement issued Tuesday, Hartford Fire Chief Reginald Freeman says the...
Lobbyists at California Comp Conference Call Tension between D.C. and Sacramento ‘Palpable’
Jul 12 2017 // The tension between Washington D.C. and Sacramento seems to have created extra work for some lobbyists. “It’s absolutely palpable,” Paul Yoder, managing director for the California Coalition on...
Louisiana Workers’ Comp Corp. Declares $90M Policyholder Dividend for 2016
Jul 11 2017 // Louisiana workers’ compensation insurance provider, LWCC, announced a 2016 dividend of $90.6 million. The amount was distributed to over 20,000 policyholders in April 2017. This is the 14th consecutive year LWCC has...
Pennsylvania Court Rules Section of State Workers’ Comp Act Unconstitutional
Jul 11 2017 // The Pennsylvania Supreme Court last month found a section of the state Workers’ Compensation Act (the Act) unconstitutional in a move that challenges the way Pennsylvania has assessed workplace injuries for the past...
People
Jul 10 2017 // Kansas City-based insurance broker Lockton has named Jeff Henningsen as president of its Houston property/casualty insurance operation. Henningsen will take on an expanded leadership role in business development for the...
Massachusetts’ Knight-Dik Insurance: 100 Years, Four Generations of Leadership
Jul 10 2017 // When Thomas Babb launched his insurance agency – Thomas Babb Insurance Agency – in an 11-story building in downtown Worcester, Mass., in 1917, he also launched a legacy that would span a century of growth and...
Midwest States Show Slightly Better Return-to-Work Results
Jul 10 2017 // From 10 to 18 percent of injured workers never reach “substantial return to work,” according to new research by the Workers Compensation Research Institute (WCRI) comparing outcomes for injured workers in six...
Arkansas Commissioner Kerr Approves 3 New Insurers in State
Jul 7 2017 // Arkansas Insurance Commissioner Allen Kerr has granted Certificates of Authority to three out-of-state insurance companies to do business in Arkansas. The Arkansas Insurance Department reported that COPIC Insurance Company...
California Workers’ Comp Bureau Rolls out 2018 Experience Mod Estimator
Jul 6 2017 // The Workers’ Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau has launched the 2018 Experience Modification Estimator for insurers, agents and brokers to help policyholders understand how their payroll and claim experience will...
Texas Workers’ Comp Draft Rule Requires Preauthorization of Compounded Drugs
Jul 6 2017 // The Texas Department of Insurance – Division of Workers’ Compensation is accepting comments through July 7 on an informal draft rule that requires compounded drugs to be preauthorized. The draft rule was...
Court: Former Work Comp Commissioner Can Sue Iowa over Alleged GOP Reprisals
Jul 6 2017 // In a landmark decision making it easier for citizens to sue government officials who violate their rights, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled that a Democratic appointee can seek damages for alleged political retaliation he...
How Whirlpool Risk Manager Addresses Issues Before They Become Problems
Jul 6 2017 // Powered by InsuranceJournal.tv A big part of risk management is acting to prevent problems before they happen — whether it involves the health and safety of employees, outside market forces, or mergers and acquisitions,...
Liberty Mutual Prevails in $3.6M ‘Guaranteed Cost’ Workers’ Comp Premium Case
Jul 5 2017 // Liberty Mutual Insurance Co. has won a case against a company that refused to pay $3.64 million in additional workers’ compensation premium after a payroll audit revealed it had more high risk employees than...
Proposed Ohio Legislation Adds Opportunities for Self-Insurance
Jun 30 2017 // Ohio is one of the few states that does not allow private insurers to participate in the workers’ compensation system, although it permits larger employers to “self-insure” to administer and pay their own...
Zimmerman Named to Louisiana Workers’ Comp Advisory Council
Jun 30 2017 // Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards has appointed Marc L. Zimmermann, Ph.D., of Prairieville, to the Louisiana Workers’ Compensation Advisory Council. Zimmermann is a psychologist in private practice and will serve as a...
