County cracking down on deception
- Workers’ compensation fraud was a main topic at West Central Ohio Safety Council’s recent meeting.
- The National Insurance Crime Bureau says workers’ comp fraud costs 30 billion annually.
- The goal is for West Central Ohio businesses to see the value private investigators can bring to their industry.
- “Private investigators have been helping the workers’ comp industry for years. We help to prevent abusive and fraudulent claims,” said Adam Visnic, president and founder of Gravitas Investigations.
Costs fall in Kentucky
- Costs for workers’ compensation coverage in Kentucky fell for the 17th consecutive time, Kentucky Department of Insurance Commissioner Sharon Clark announced.
- The 2022 filing, approved by the Kentucky Department of Insurance, was submitted by the NCCI.
- Wage and medical inflation have the potential to affect historical patterns and were considered but it is not anticipated to create increased premiums due to the declining claim trend.
- For coal classes, surface mining decreased by 2.2% while underground coal mining increased by 3.5% from the 2021 loss costs.
Firms must ensure the safety of short-term workers
- NIOSH released a new set of safety and health best practices to assist employers that hire temporary workers that are divided into three sections.
- The first is evaluation and contracting where employers and staffing firms should evaluate all facets of safety and health-related to each organization and the jobs workers are being hired to perform.
- The second is providing adequate training for all temporary workers before they start new assignments or start new jobs or tasks on existing assignments.
- The final guideline is to keep up with record keeping with work-related injuries or illnesses, and firms must report fatalities to OSHA within eight hours and serious injuries and illnesses within 24 hours.
County considers change to workers comp vendor
- The administration in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, is recommending the council switch to a new vendor to oversee workers’ compensation claims.
- The change could reduce costs and will provide access to an online claims management platform, according to the council work session agenda.
- Excalibur Insurance Management Services has handled the work as a third-party administrator for many years, and the administration is proposing a new contract with Inservco Insurance Services Inc.
- The county issued a request for proposals for claims administration and received four responses because of the expiration of the Excalibur contract.