Market deals with increased pricing
- The workers’ compensation insurance results will get a boost from a long-term trend of claims frequency improvement due to advances in safety and risk management practices.
- However, unfavorable pricing trends, competitive market conditions, and the potential for worsening loss trends amid inflation and other pressures could lead to rising loss severity.
- This trend could particularly affect medical costs, which could impact future results.
- Nonetheless, workers’ compensation remained the insurance industry’s strongest performer.
Call for workers’ comp improvements in Kansas
- Kansas was one of the first states to enact a workers’ compensation system in 1911.
- However, the system has undergone major challenges over the past few years, and workers in Kansas cannot sue their employer even if the employer is grossly negligent in causing the injury.
- Kansas is one of only a few states that limit benefits to permanently and totally disabled workers with a cap of $155,000 for the rest of that worker’s life, regardless of their age, family, or severity of the injury.
- There is a call for lawmakers to amend some of the limits of the state’s workers’ compensation market.
Injured worker wants to change workers comp law
- An injured sheriff’s office detective in Nevada wants to change the state’s workers comp laws.
- The Nevada legislature privatized workers comp in 1995 and removed the “bad faith” clause leaving injured workers no recourse if they believe they’ve been unjustly denied coverage.
- The injured officer, Kim Frankel, was denied treatment for an injury she suffered on the job.
- Frankle and another crew member had been hit by a one-ton truck while surveying drainage lines underneath the roadway and he now fighting for benefits.
Accountant accused of stealing $7M in benefits
- An accountant in Bergen County, New Jersey, is accused of defrauding a public insurance carrier of more than $7 million in workers’ compensation premiums.
- Steven Lyon allegedly falsified payroll records that greatly reduced the size of a client’s workforce.
- He was hired by a New York specialty contractor to prepare and file its quarterly payroll reports with the state Department of Labor, and its yearly state and federal tax returns.
- Lyon allegedly used separate email accounts to file payroll-related documents with the labor department and insurance fund.