Washington State Pulls Plug on Decade-Long WC IT Project WaTech, Washignton state’s information technology oversight office has suspended “all project activities and expenditures” for the $292 million upgrade on the state’s workers’ compensation IT system due to a “continued lack of progress and ability to execute” by the state Department of Labor & Industries, […]

  Ohio Public Employers to See 1% Rate Cut Ohio’s public employers will pay some $2 million less in premiums next year after the the Bureau of Workers’ Compensation (BWC) Board of Directors approved a 1% rate reduction. Effective Jan. 1, 2026, action has a projected annual premium decrease of approximately $1.8 million. That pales […]

  Texas Releases 2025 Income Benefits Report The Texas Department of Insurance’s Workers’ Compensation Research and Evaluation Group has released a new report on income benefits in the state’s system, analyzing income replacement rates and characteristics of injured employees who received the maximum amount of income benefits. The report comes in the wake of recent […]

  Minnesota Study Finds PTSD Onset Delay Challenges Claims Process A new study by the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) claims in the workers’ compensation system found that some claims are denied early in the process, often before a definitive diagnosis has been established by a qualified mental health […]

    Nuclear Workers Claims Stall After HHS Medical Panel Pause The medical claims by thousands of nuclear workers are in limbo after the HHS suspended indefinitely the expert medical bodies charged with reviewing those claims, Reuters reported. The suspension of the board and its impact on the claims processes has not been previously reported. […]

  Washington’s Independent Medical Exams Said to Favor Employers Independent medical examinations in Washington State are alleged to favor the state’s workers’ compensation agency or self-insured employers, according to a local media investigation. Cascade PBS reports that between 2020 and 2024, the state’s workers’ compensation system spent roughly $100 million on these exams. Labor & […]

  Fitch WC Dashboard Sees WC Strong Performance Weakening Fitch expects U.S. workers’ compensation underwriting margins to weaken, with combined ratios shifting into the mid-90% territory over the coming years. That comes after WC line has for several years been the strongest performing major commercial product line in the U.S. property and casualty industry. The […]

  Marsh Exec Sees Uptick in Healthcare WC Claims From Trump’s BB Bill Marsh’s Gigi Norris warns new regulatory changes embedded in President Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” are likely to aggravate already critical staffing shortages across the U.S. healthcare sector, according to The Insurer. As a knock-on effect, she expects an uptick in workers’ […]

  Drivers, Chauffeurs, Messengers Top List of Most-Reclassified WC Codes NCCI’s latest Classification Inspection Program showed that the most-reclassified code was 7380, which covers drivers, chauffeurs and messengers. An analysis of 2022-2024 program data, revealed that more than half of the policies relevant to Code 7380 resulted in a change to their governing classification code […]

  Ivans: WC Q2 Premium Renewal Rates Down Again, Buck Commercial Trends The Ivans Index showed that the workers’ compensation premium renewal rate change averaged -1.75% in Q2 2025, down from Q1 2025 at -1.51%. The quarter reached its lowest premium renewal rate change in May, averaging -1.87% and ended with its highest rate of […]