How will rising inflation affect workers’ comp rates
- While market conditions stabilized, overall rates will continue to moderate throughout 2022 with workers’ compensation a notable exception, according to Gallagher’s latest Spring/Summer market report.
- Workers’ comp should expect macroeconomic factors to drive claim costs even as other lines transition to rate adequacy despite recent profitability and a decrease in COVID claims.
- The report notes that rates have been low for workers’ compensation for several years, with a 0.6 percent median rate change in the first quarter of 2022.
- Gallagher predicts that the workers’ compensation market could be hardening as employees return to work in the endemic stage of the pandemic.
Workers killed in shoreline collapse
- A construction company owner and a worker have been identified as the people killed in a trench collapse just north of Seattle in Shoreline.
- David Ameh, 66, and Demetrius Seller, 32, died from suffocation during a trend collapse just north of Seattle, the King County Medical Examiner’s Office announced.
- The pair were trying to replace a damaged sewer connection.
- The state Department of Labor and Industries will investigate the incident, which generally takes six months.
- The bodies of Ameh and Seller were recovered by the Shoreline Fire Department and partners who used hand tools, a vacuum hose, and protective metal boxes to reach them in unstable soil.
Michigan workers killed at Gerber plant
- An employee conducting repairs was killed in an accident at the Gerber plant in Fremont, Mich.
- The mechanic was hit by and became caught up in a conveyor system when it started moving, according to a preliminary investigation.
- The 58-year-old worker’s name has not been released and operations at the plant were halted following the death.
- Police are investigating along with the Newaygo County Medical Examiner’s Office and Michigan OSHA.
Worker injured by a fire while in Washington
A man sustained serious burns after he was engulfed in flames while working outside a home undergoing asbestos abatement in north Spokane.
A structure fire was reported at 35 E. Westview Ave. and arriving units found a box van on fire that was spreading to the backside of a house where crews were removing asbestos.
Two people were working inside the home and one person was working outside in or around the van when the back of the van caught fire,.
The man working outside had first- and second-degree burns on his head, neck, face, arms, torso and buttocks and he was taken by ambulance to the hospital and then flown to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.