Ohio Mulls 1% Cut on Public Worker Rates

The Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation is mulling a 1% rate cut for the state’s public employers.
The projected annual premium decrease from the cut would be about $1.8 million.
As of July 1, the state’s private employers saw a 6% decrease, saving employers $60 million, the bureau said.
The 1% reduction would take effect Jan. 1, 2026, if the board approves it next month. The average workers comp rate levels for Ohio’s 258,000 private and public employers are their lowest in over 60 years, according to the bureau, which provides workers comp insurance for all employers in the state.
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The president of the New York City Transit Authority said Sedgwick “weren’t ready as they should have been” to take on the processing of workers’ compensation claims, leading to delays in payouts for some workers in the last month.
Demetrius Crichlow made the comments Monday at a meeting of the agency’s Bus Committee where he explained that the firm Sedgwick had issues transitioning legacy staff’s workers compensation claims in the weeks after the MTA started using the firm in May.
“As with any changes, especially this large, we learn early lessons on how we can work with Sedgwick and our labor partners,” Crichlow said at the meeting. “It’s regrettable that this happened but it’s our goal to make sure to get it right and not to have the issue happen again.”
The MTA moved all management for workers compensation claims to Sedgwick as of May 19 and by mid-July had informed Transport Workers Union Local 100 that the company was not yet able to process half of the workers compensation claims made before the transition.
Local 100 of the union said that could be up to 2,500 claimants possibly missing out on paychecks.
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A U.S. federal court judge has blocked first-of-its-kind legislation enacted in Arkansas to ban pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) from owning or operating pharmacies in the state starting next year.
In Arkansas, workers’ compensation insurance providers are generally required to use a PBM to administer pharmacy benefits. Arkansas Rule 099.41 specifically states that payors (insurance companies) must either have a pharmacist and physician on staff or contract with a PBM that has those professionals on staff.
In April, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed Act 624, a law that bars PBMs from receiving or holding permits to operate a drugstore in Arkansas, effective Jan. 1, 2026, prompting multiple lawsuits from the industry.
The nation’s three largest PBMs, owned by UnitedHealth, CVS Health and Cigna, along with the trade group Pharmaceutical Care Management Association, challenged the law in four separate lawsuits between May and June.
Combining the lawsuits into one, Judge Brian Miller for the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas granted the plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction on Monday.
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The Hartford said its workers’ compensation unit in the second quarter registered modest declines in pricing from the first quarter, though it remains within expectations.
In a call with investors following Tuesday’s earnings report, Chris Swift, chairman and CEO, said workers’ comp industry is somewhat insulated from broad-based medical inflation, so management “feels comfortable” with their expectations of 3% medical inflation.
The company reported Property & Casualty (P&C) written premiums increased by 8% in the second quarter of 2025, driven by Business Insurance and Personal Insurance premium growth of 8% and 7%, respectively.
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