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’ compensation claims, driven by increased incidence or reporting of workplace injuries when understaffing leads to operational lapses.
• The workers’ comp exposure is being framed less as a hypothetical and more as a near-certainty given existing stress points in U.S. healthcare.
• She also anticipates a rise in Employment Practices Liability exposures—legal claims stemming from workplace issues like discrimination, harassment, wrongful termination—likely triggered by stressed, under-resourced environments.
  READ MORE

CVS Health Ruled Not Covered in Opioid Suits

• CVS Health is not entitled to coverage from insurers against a myriad of lawsuits over its role in the opioid crisis, the Delaware Supreme court ruled on Monday,
• The court said that governments, hospitals, doctors and benefit plans that sued CVS sought damages for economic losses, not individualized “bodily injury” or “property damage” covered by CVS’s general liability policies.
• The insurers included AIG and Chubb.
  READ MORE

Texas Sets 2026 WC Research Agenda

• The Texas Department of Insurance, Division of Workers’ Compensation plans to complete and publish of the 18th Edition of the Workers’ Compensation Health Care Network Report Card as part of its 2026 research agenda.
• The  agency said last week it also expects to update medical costs and utilization in the Texas workers’ compensation system.
• As well, the Workers’ Compensation Research and Evaluation Group (REG) plans to  update return-to-work outcomes for injured employees, including an examination of the state’s injured employees’ initial and sustained return-to-work rates and wage-recovery rates.
• The REG will consider expanding the scope of the research projects or conducting more
  projects to accommodate stakeholder suggestions, subject to the resources and data
  available.
  READ MORE