Workers comp market evolving with new laws
- COVID played a big role in alternations to workers’ compensation in various states, which could have a long-term impact on the market.
- In California, a bill expanded COVID claim provisions applicable to firefighters and police officers to include active firefighting members of a fire department at various state agencies.
- In addition, workers’ compensation payments that are considered “unreasonably” delayed will result in penalties of up to $50,000 for specified first responder claims.
- There were other significant changes in New York, Minnesota, and Texas that will impact the market moving forward.
Tile manufacturer faces $1.2M in fines
- An Ohio vinyl tile manufacturer faces $1.2 million in proposed penalties after OSHA responded when a worker suffered severe injuries as a result of being caught in a machine on April 28, 2022.
- The incident marks the seventh injury at the NOX US LLC plant in Fostoria since February 2017 related to the company’s failure to follow required machine safety procedures.
- Since 2017, the company also recorded at least 13 serious injuries at the plant caused by exposure to burn and amputation hazards. OSHA placed the Fostoria plant in its Severe Violator Enforcement Program in 2017.
- The April inspection found that the injured worker’s finger was first caught in a rotating spindle on a plastic winding machine and then their body was pulled around the machine’s spindle.
Father and son involved in massive workers comp fraud
- Edgardo Cabrales Sr. and his son, Edgar Cabrales Jr. of San Jose, are charged with five felony counts each of insurance fraud after they allegedly underreported $12 million in payroll to save on workers’ comp premiums.
- The Cabrales own two commercial cleaning companies in San Jose and an investigation by California regulators began after the State Compensation Insurance Fraud (SCIF) suspected the businesses of fraud.
- The investigation discovered that since 2016 the Cabrales had only secured insurance coverage for a fraction of their PBM employees and they never secured a workers’ compensation insurance policy to insure their NFM employees.
- The father and son accomplices failed to report approximately $12 million in wages to SCIF in order to save money on insurance, resulting in $4.2 million in lost premiums.
Knee injuries on the rise in the workplace
- A study published in the International Archives of Occupational and Environmental Health found that men who worked for 11–30 years in building and construction had a 3.7-fold greater risk of developing knee osteoarthritis.
- Additionally, a 2021 study from Arthritis Care and Research cites nine specific job titles associated with knee osteoarthritis, including farmers, builders, metal workers, and floor layers.
- OA occurs when the protective cartilage that cushions the ends of the bones wears down over time and the condition comes with an annual price tag of more than $27 billion in health care costs in the United States, according to the Arthritis Foundation.
- The foundation also reports that 20 million Americans have lost about $71 million in wages from lost work directly related to osteoarthritis.