Latest Workers' Compensation Headlines
All the headlines from our Workers' Compensation Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Mass. Data Shows Affordable Care Act Could Lower WC Costs
May 21 2012 // What would the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 do to the workers’ comp medical care costs? One new study looked at the example from Massachusetts’ healthcare reform for answers. And it...
Controlling Costs by Curtailing Workers’ Comp Fraud
May 21 2012 // While most workers’ compensation claims stem from real instances of on-the-job injuries, there are, unfortunately, people who cheat the system, driving up costs for employers, consumers and insurers. According to the...
Dysfunction in Illinois
May 21 2012 // Illinois’ troubled system for compensating injured state workers hands out money too readily, sometimes without medical evidence to back up a claim and occasionally paying benefits the hurt employee didn’t even...
Michigan Marks 100
May 21 2012 // March 2012 marked the 100th anniversary of the workers’ compensation system in Michigan. Commenting in a video commemorating the anniversary, Michigan Workers’ Compensation Director Kevin Elsenheimer said...
Worker Death Leads to $473K Fine for Illinois Manufacturer
May 20 2012 // A manufacturing plant in Illinois faces a fine of $473,000 after a worker died from chemical burns. The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration has cited Raani Corp. for failing to...
Texas Company Fined $212K Over Safety Hazards
May 20 2012 // Federal regulators have imposed a fine of more than $200,000 against an aluminum products manufacturing facility in Carrollton, Texas, for safety and health violations. The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational...
OSHA Probes Florida Postal Worker’s Mysterious Illness
May 18 2012 // The federal agency that monitors worker safety has opened an investigation into the illness of a U.S. postal worker who became sick after coming into contact with a mysterious package from Yemen. A spokesman for the...
Safety Inspections Don’t Hurt Businesses; Do Lower Workers’ Comp Costs: Study
May 17 2012 // Random inspections of U.S. industrial workplaces lower the risk of workers being injured on the job and have no measurable negative effect on the companies inspected, according to a study in the journal Science. Companies...
Two Workers Hurt in Texas Fracking Tank Site Blast
May 17 2012 // Two workers were hurt in an explosion at a hydraulic fracturing tank site in south Texas early on Wednesday, a sheriff’s dispatcher said. U.S. workplace safety regulators cited the company that owns the site, Vann...
Missouri House Approves Bill on Suing Co-Workers
May 16 2012 // Missouri lawmakers likely will not pass any legislation moving claims related to deadly work-related diseases into the workers’ compensation system, Senate Majority Leader Tom Dempsey said. The state Legislature will...
Report: Workers’ Compensation Premium Grows But Market Results Still ‘Conflicted’
May 14 2012 // Workers’ compensation premium grew by 7.4 percent in 2011, a positive sign for the state of the line. However, the combined ratio for the workers’ comp line remains at an unsustainable level, according to a new...
Louisiana-Based Amerisafe Sees Premium Growth in Q1 2012
May 11 2012 // Amerisafe Inc., a specialty provider of hazardous workers’ compensation insurance headquartered in DeRidder, La., saw a 19 percent growth in premium written during the first quarter ended March 31, 2012, compared...
Do Safety Incentives Discourage Workers from Reporting Injuries?
May 10 2012 // Many employers are in the dark over whether their safety incentive programs encourage or discourage the reporting of injuries and illnesses by their employees, or if they have no effect. But a new report says employers,...
Bay Area Business Owners, Employee Nailed For Workers’ Comp Fraud
May 9 2012 // Sied “Mike Zarrin” Zarrinsaray, 52, his wife Ronak Barazandeh, 43, the owners of United RMR Enterprises, Inc. of San Jose, were arrested for workers’ compensation insurance fraud, according to the...
2 Texas Firms Receive Safety Awards from Work Comp Regulators
May 8 2012 // The Texas Department of Insurance, Division of Workers’ Compensation (TDI-DWC) has recognized Detex Corp. of New Braunfels and James Avery Craftsman Inc. of Kerrville with the Peer Review Safety Program Award. The...
Florida Revises Workers’ Comp Certificates, Excess Profits, Premium Audit Laws
May 7 2012 // Florida’s governor has signed workers’ compensation legislation streamlining the workers’ compensation certificate process, eliminating mandatory premium audits, and discontinuing refunds for insurers...
Probe Finds N.Y. Paid Prison Inmates Improper Workers’ Comp Benefits
May 7 2012 // An investigation from the New York State comptroller’s office found that the State Insurance Fund improperly paid seven inmates more than $36,000 in workers’ compensation benefits while they were in state...
Insurance Premiums Climb to a Record $30 Billion in Missouri in 2011
May 7 2012 // Missouri experienced a number of insurance industry “firsts” in 2011, including a record number of premium sales dollars, the largest-ever amount in claims paid for a single event, and an historically high...
California Workers’ Comp Reform Taking Shape – Again
May 7 2012 // At a recent joint hearing in Sacramento on workers’ compensation in California with the Assembly and Senate, statistic after statistic flew out of the mouths of speaker after speaker during the nearly four-hour...
North Carolina Threatens Jail Time Over Workers’ Unpaid Claims
May 7 2012 // North Carolina officials are requiring insurers to expedite the payment of workers’ compensation patients’ medical and wage-loss benefits or risk being sentenced to jail. The North Carolina Industrial...
