Latest Workers' Compensation Headlines

All the headlines from our Workers' Compensation Topic Page, ordered by recency.

It Figures

Mar 22 2010 // 4.6% Nebraska’s unemployment rate remained unchanged at 4.6 percent in January, still less than half the national rate of 9.7 percent, according to state officials. The preliminary December rate of 4.7 percent...

Clashes Led to Firings, Discrimination Claims at Ohio Work Comp Council

Mar 22 2010 // Internal pressure was mounting for months ahead of the February firings of the staff of an agency charged with protecting the well-being of Ohio’s insurance fund for injured workers. Public records obtained by The...

Pinnacol Assurance Offers Colorado $330 Million to Become Private Insurer

Mar 19 2010 // Pinnacol Assurance, Colorado’s quasi-governmental workers’ compensation insurer, has submitted a potential separation agreement to Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter that would establish Pinnacol as a domestic mutual...

Oklahoma GOP Forges Ahead With Workers’ Comp Overhaul

Mar 18 2010 // Oklahoma Senate Republicans are continuing their push to completely overhaul Oklahoma’s workers’ compensation laws, arguing the system is too expensive for businesses. The Senate Judiciary Committee has...

Michigan Legislator Seeks Workers’ Compensation for Illegal Immigrants

Mar 18 2010 // A Michigan state representative has filed a bill to give illegal aliens in the state access to workers compensation benefits if they are injured on the job. State Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Detroit, has introduced legislation...

Appeals Court Sides with Texas Mutual on Sanctions in Work Comp Case

Mar 18 2010 // The Texas Fifth District Court of Appeals in Dallas issued an opinion on March 16, 2010, ruling that sanctions imposed against Texas Mutual Insurance Company related to a workers’ compensation case were improper. The...

Commercial Insurance Prices Stayed Flat in 4th Quarter: Towers Watson

Mar 18 2010 // A competitive market landscape perpetuated flat commercial insurance prices during the fourth quarter of 2009, according to the latest market survey. After nearly five years of steady price decreases, findings from...

Ohio House Review of Worker’s Comp Council Firings Begins March 24

Mar 17 2010 // A state House of Representatives committee will review a council created to protect Ohio’s insurance fund for injured workers in the wake of the firing of the council’s three-member staff. House Insurance...

Report: Calif. Workers’ Comp Insurance Market Still Needs Improvement

Mar 16 2010 // California workers’ compensation claims and disability costs have dropped significantly since the state’s workers’ compensation system was overhauled in 2003 and 2004. Yet “many of the same...

Trucking Led To $480 Million in Calif. Workers’ Comp Payments

Mar 15 2010 // Injuries in the trucking industry led to more than $480 million in workers’ compensation medical and indemnity payments, according to the California Workers’ Compensation Institute. The group, which released a...

Starr, Chubb Form Workers Compensation Underwriting Agreement

Mar 15 2010 // Starr Indemnity & Liability Co., Inc., an indirectly wholly owned subsidiary of Starr International Company, Inc., and Chubb & Son, a division of Federal Insurance Co., a wholly owned subsidiary of The Chubb, have...

Calif. Makes Appointments to Workers’ Comp Insurance Rating Bureau

Mar 12 2010 // Calif. Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner announced that he has reappointed Lee Pearson of Rancho Murieta, and Bruce Wick of San Bernardino, to the Workers’ Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau Governing Committee....

Calif. Workers’ Comp Insurer Records $143 Million Net Income for 2009

Mar 12 2010 // The California State Compensation Insurance Fund, reported it ended 2009 with $1.25 billion in net premium earned, and $143 million in net income, compared with $75 million in net income earned in 2008, Doug Stewart,...

3 Face Federal Charges in Chicago Workers’ Comp Fraud Case

Mar 12 2010 // Federal law enforcement officials in Chicago report that a chiropractor, a medical doctor and a billing employee at a clinic in Maywood, Ill., have been indicted on federal charges related to workers’ compensation...

Measure to Privatize Oklahoma’s Compsource Dead for the Year

Mar 12 2010 // The author of legislation authorizing the sale of Oklahoma’s workers’ compensation insurance agency said he does not have enough votes to pass it in the state House and that the bill appears dead for the...

Profit Plunges at West Virginia’s Brickstreet Mutual

Mar 11 2010 // Competition and the expiration of federal tax exemption cut BrickStreet Mutual Insurance Co.’s profit by 66 percent in 2009. The workers’ compensation insurer says it earned $38.9 million last year, compared to...

Worker’s Compensation Bill Passes Oklahoma Senate

Mar 11 2010 // The Oklahoma Senate has passed a bill aimed at worker’s compensation system reform, SB 1973, sponsored by Senate President Pro Tem Glenn Coffee. Provisions of SB 1973 include: Decreases the number of Worker’s...

Clashes Led to Firings, Discrimination Claims at Ohio Work Comp Council

Mar 10 2010 // Internal pressure was mounting for months ahead of the February firings of the staff of an agency charged with protecting the well-being of Ohio’s insurance fund for injured workers. Public records obtained by The...

Fairfax Financial to Buy Remaining Shares of Zenith National Insurance in $1.4 Billion Deal

Mar 8 2010 // Toronto-based Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd. and Woodland Hills, Calif.-based Zenith National Insurance Corp. have entered into a merger agreement in which Fairfax will acquire all of the outstanding shares of Zenith...

IRS, States Target Employer Abuse of Classification of Independent Contractors

Mar 8 2010 // The Internal Revenue Service and 37 states are cracking down on companies that try to trim payroll costs by illegally classifying workers as independent contractors, rather than as full employees, The Associated Press has...