Latest Workers' Compensation Headlines
All the headlines from our Workers' Compensation Topic Page, ordered by recency.
All Commercial Lines Rates, Even Workers’ Compensation, Up in May: IVANS Index
Jun 1 2017 // The May IVANS Index shows that for the first time in several months, premium renewal rates in all major commercial insurance lines are in positive territory. Notably, May is the first time in 2017 that workers’...
Illinois Senate Passes Bills Requiring Work Comp Pre-Approval, Creating Nonprofit Insurer
May 30 2017 // The Illinois Senate has passed two workers’ compensation measures — one that would require companies writing workers’ comp insurance to get state approval for the rates they charge, and another that creates a...
Texas Bill Affirming Workers’ Comp Division Fraud Unit Advances
May 26 2017 // The Texas Senate has passed legislation that affirms the authority of Texas Division of Workers’ Compensation fraud unit to conduct criminal investigations. The Senate passed HB 2053 on May 24; it was previously...
OSHA, Mid Continent Recommit to Oklahoma Oil and Gas Worker Safety Alliance
May 26 2017 // U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration and Mid Continent Exploration and Production Safety Network have renewed an alliance to promote safety at oil and gas operations in...
Mass. Court Says Suspended Public Employee Can Receive Workers’ Comp
May 24 2017 // The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has ruled that an injured public employee is still eligible to receive workers’ compensation benefits after being suspended from employment. The court concluded that...
Texas Workers’ Comp Research Group Lays Out 2017 Agenda
May 23 2017 // The Texas Workers’ Compensation Research and Evaluation Group has released its 2017 research agenda, a blueprint for its efforts to provide critical data for decision-makers in the Texas workers’ compensation...
Florida Woman Caught Faking Workers’ Comp Injury Gets Probation
May 23 2017 // A South Florida woman was convicted of fraud May 3 and must serve 18 months of probation after she was caught hitting herself in the head with a ceiling sprinkler at work. The incident happened in October 2015 at...
California Commissioner Lowers Workers’ Comp Pure Premium
May 22 2017 // California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones issued a revised advisory pure premium rate, lowering the benchmark to $2.02 per $100 of payroll for workers’ compensation insurance effective July 1. This is 16.5 percent...
California’s Comp Insurers Had 5.1% More in Direct Written Premium in 2016
May 22 2017 // California workers’ compensation insurers wrote $12.96 billion in direct written premium last year, an increase of $628 million, or 5.1 percent, from the prior year, according to new data from the National...
Ohio Bill Would Limit Access to Workers’ Comp for Workers Here Illegally
May 22 2017 // The Ohio House has approved a workers’ compensation budget that blocks workers living in the country illegally who get hurt on the job from accessing compensation benefits. The Columbus Dispatch reports the bill was...
New York Construction Company Owner Indicted for Manslaughter
May 22 2017 // The owner of a Bedford-Stuyvesant construction company and his businesses have been indicted on manslaughter and other charges after a wall collapsed at an excavation site, killing one construction worker and injuring two...
Feds Warn Arizona Commission that Lowering Workplace Injury Fines is Risky
May 19 2017 // Federal officials warned a commission overseeing Arizona’s workplace safety agency that its practice of lowering fines on companies for worker injuries and deaths violates the state’s laws and could jeopardize...
Injured Worker Attorney Involvement Varies Widely by State
May 18 2017 // There is a wide variation in the percentage of claims with worker attorneys involvement across state workers’ compensation systems, according to the latest research from the Workers Compensation Research Institute...
California Division of Workers’ Compensation Suspends Two, Including Drobot
May 18 2017 // California’s Department of Industrial Relations and the Division of Workers’ Compensation has suspended two more medical providers from participating in California’s workers’ compensation...
Alabama Workers’ Compensation Act to Remain in Place, For Now
May 18 2017 // Alabama’s workers’ compensation law, ruled unconstitutional by a county judge last week, will remain in effect for the immediate future. The Alabama judge who on May 8 declared the state’s workers’...
Report: New Medical Coding System Not Yet An Improvement in California Comp
May 17 2017 // A new report shows that an updated medical coding system that went into effect in California a year-and-a-half ago hasn’t done much to better define the characteristics of worker injuries than the old one. A report...
Oklahoma Court Affirms Employer’s Right to Choose Provider in Workers’ Comp Case
May 17 2017 // An Oklahoma civil appeals court ruled in favor of an employer and its insurer in affirming an order by the Oklahoma Workers’ Compensation Commission, asserting an employer’s right to direct the medical...
Study: Comp Reform Led to Drop in Medical Payments Per Claim in California
May 16 2017 // California’s total costs per workers’ compensation claim with more than seven days of lost time have remained stable after the passage of workers’ comp reform, while most other states experienced an...
New York Board Proposes 4.5% Workers’ Compensation Rate Decrease
May 16 2017 // New York businesses could soon see some slight relief in workers’ compensation premiums, according to an announcement from Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo. The governor’s office released a statement Monday saying that the...
Louisiana Bill to Limit Opioids for Injured Workers Passes Committee
May 15 2017 // Hoping to prevent fatal overdoses, a House committee passed a bill to make it harder for injured Louisiana workers to access highly-addictive opioid drugs. Lawmakers voted 8-5 on May 11 to have prescribers consult a...
