Latest Workers' Compensation Headlines
All the headlines from our Workers' Compensation Topic Page, ordered by recency.
CompWest, Align General Insurance to offer Debit Experience Modification Program
Dec 23 2013 // CompWest Insurance Co., part of the Accident Fund Holdings family, has partnered with Align General Insurance Agency to write workers’ compensation insurance in California for high-quality risks with a debit...
New York Issues $370M in Bonds to Resolve Workers’ Compensation Claims
Dec 23 2013 // New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced last Friday the state issued $370 million in bonds to assist businesses in failed group self-insured trusts fulfill their obligations to their injured workers. The bonding is made...
Rail Car Services Cited for Safety, Health Violations in Kansas City
Dec 23 2013 // Rail Car Services LLC has been cited by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration for 11 safety and health violations, including eight repeat, at its Kansas City rail car...
New Jersey Roofer Indicted for Alleged Workers’ Compensation Fraud
Dec 22 2013 // Authorities have charged the head of a central New Jersey roofing company with stealing more than $265,000 through alleged insurance fraud. The state attorney general’s office says Charles Kelcy Pegler Sr., was...
Clingman to Join Workers’ Comp Research Group in Oklahoma
Dec 20 2013 // The Workers Compensation Research Institute (WCRI) announced that Michael Clingman will be joining WCRI in January as a regional director. He will be based in Oklahoma. Clingman most recently served as administrator of the...
R.I. Woman Charged With Workers’ Comp Fraud, Ordered to Pay $10K
Dec 20 2013 // A 76-year-old Providence, Rhode Island, woman must pay $10,000 in restitution on a charge of obtaining money under false pretenses for allegedly collecting workers’ compensation benefits while she was employed. The...
Tennessee County Official Vows to Carry Out Own Workers’ Comp Drug Test
Dec 20 2013 // An East Tennessee official who refuses to enforce a county drug-testing policy says he’ll implement his own. Hawkins County Property Assessor Jeff Thacker told the Kingsport Times-News that he still disagrees with...
Over $9.4M in Safety Rebates Awarded by Ohio Workers’ Comp Bureau
Dec 19 2013 // The Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation (BWC) announced that thousands of Ohio employers are receiving more than $9.4 million in savings for their participation in one of 78 safety councils sponsored by BWC’s...
Tyson Foods Fined $147K for Safety Violations at Kansas Plant
Dec 18 2013 // Tyson Foods Inc. has been cited by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration for four workplace safety violations at the Hutchinson, Kan., prepared foods manufacturing plant after a...
Rate Hikes in California Workers’ Comp: SNL Financial
Dec 18 2013 // AmTrust Financial Services Inc. hiked rates by 15 percent on its California workers’ compensation business in 2013, and it is not alone. SNL data shows multiple companies took rate during the first half of 2013. The...
Worker’s Head Injury Leads to $90K Fine for Ohio Manufacturer
Dec 18 2013 // Ohio-based McNeil Group, doing business as Pinnacle Metal Products, has been cited by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration after a worker suffered a serious head injury that...
Higginbotham Hires Ponder as AVP, Loss Control, for South Texas
Dec 18 2013 // Alan W. Ponder has joined the Houston office of insurance brokerage and financial services firm, Higginbotham, as assistant vice president of loss control. Ponder will apply his three-decade career in loss prevention to...
Constitutionality of Oklahoma Workers’ Compensation Law Upheld
Dec 17 2013 // A constitutional challenge to Oklahoma’s workers’ compensation law has been rejected by the state’s highest court. In a ruling on Dec. 16, the Oklahoma Supreme Court said Senate Bill 1062, which was...
Chevron Refinery Fire Blamed by Agency on Ignored Warnings
Dec 17 2013 // The fire at Chevron Corp.’s refinery in Richmond, Calif., last year that sickened thousands was caused by the company ignoring a decade’s worth of calls for inspections and upgrades of piping that eventually...
Illinois Company Faces Proposed $117K Fine for Unsafe Working Conditions
Dec 16 2013 // Arlington Metals Corp. in Franklin Park, Ill., has been cited by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration for 38 safety and health violations, which carry proposed penalties of...
Wisconsin Workers’ Comp Insurers Propose to Rein in Costs
Dec 13 2013 // States once again show the way to management and reform of public systems by having affected interests sit down together to work out a plan. In Wisconsin, the nation’s oldest workers’ compensation program...
OSHA Fines Geismar, Louisiana Plant $99K for 6 Safety Violations
Dec 13 2013 // The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration has proposed fines of $99,000 against Williams Olefins for a June explosion at its plant in Geismar, La., that killed two workers and injured 80. OSHA cited the...
North Dakota Workers’ Comp Mulls Suing Aon eSolutions Over Failed Project
Dec 12 2013 // North Dakota’s workers’ compensation agency is considering suing a company that failed to complete a $17 million computer system overhaul. Workforce Safety and Insurance hired Chicago-based Aon eSolutions in...
California Business Owner To Pay Millions For Workers’ Comp Fraud
Dec 9 2013 // Richard Lopez Escamilla Jr., 47, was sentenced in Kings County Superior Court in California on Dec.4 to one felony count of insurance fraud and was ordered to pay restitution of nearly $4.2 million to State Compensation...
Texas to Workers’ Comp Carriers: Direction of Care for Pharmacy Services Prohibited
Dec 9 2013 // The Texas Department of Insurance Division of Workers’ Compensation has sent a reminder to Texas workers’ compensation system participants that insurance carriers, including their agents, are prohibited from...
