Latest Workers' Compensation Headlines

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

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...

IRS, States Target Employer Abuse of Classification of Independent Contractors

Mar 7 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...

South Carolina Worker Hurt at Job, Housing Covered by Insurance

Mar 7 2010 // A seasonal worker is entitled to workers compensation benefits for an injury sustained after falling at a housing complex supplied by his employer, the South Carolina Supreme Court has ruled. The court sided with the...

IRS, States Target Employer Abuse of Classification of Independent Contractors

Mar 7 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...

Fired Ohio Workers’ Compensation Board Employees Allege Religious Bias

Mar 5 2010 // The staff of a board created to monitor legislation affecting Ohio’s massive injured worker insurance fund after a rare coin investment scandal has been fired, plunging its oversight role into chaos. The three fired...

Package of Oklahoma Workers’ Comp Reform Bills Passes House

Mar 4 2010 // Legislation aimed at reforming the Oklahoma workers’ compensation system has passed the state’s House of Representatives. House Bills 1611, 2652, 2658 and 2659 now move to the Senate for consideration. The...

Mass. AG Coakley Opposes Proposed Workers’ Compensation Rate Hike

Mar 3 2010 // Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley said she opposes an insurance industry request to raise workers’ compensation premiums by about four percent this year. She said the hike would put an “additional...

Kentucky Governor Urges Workers Compensation Rate Cut

Mar 3 2010 // Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear has asked the state’s largest workers’ compensation insurer to consider returning some of its $147 million surplus as a premium reduction or dividend to the small businesses that it...

Vermont Firms to See Decline in Workers’ Comp Costs

Mar 3 2010 // Vermont Gov. Jim Douglas says the state’s business owners are going to be paying less for workers’ compensation insurance. The new rates that will take effect April 1 will mark the fourth consecutive year in...

Calif. Construction Company Sued for Misclassifying, Underpaying Workers

Mar 3 2010 // California Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. has filed a lawsuit against Livermore-based Country Builders Inc. after he said the company “cheated workers out of wages,” falsified the company’s payroll...

Massachusetts Worker’s Compensation Premium Rates Could Rise

Mar 2 2010 // Massachusetts workers’ compensation insurance rates would rise an average of 4.5 percent under a new rate proposal submitted by the Workers’ Compensation Rating and Inspection Bureau. The bureau is the licensed...

Restaurant Work Injury Claims Account for 4% of Calif. Workers’ Comp Benefit Payments

Mar 2 2010 // Restaurant workers accounted for 6.1 percent of all California job injury claims, but only 4.1 percent of the state’s workers’ compensation benefit payments from 2000 to 2008, the California Workers’...

Arrowhead Announces Workers’ Compensation & Commercial Division Executive Appointments

Feb 26 2010 // San Diego, CA, 02/26/2010 – ARROWHEAD General Insurance Agency, Inc., a leading provider of top rated insurance programs, is pleased to announce executive management level promotions. These changes are effective...

AIG Reduces Q4 Loss; Reports Some Stabilization While Challenges Remain

Feb 26 2010 // American International Group, Inc. (AIG) reported a net loss of $8.9 billion for the fourth quarter of 2009, compared to a net loss of $61.7 billion in the fourth quarter of 2008. The company said that net loss in the...

Oklahoma AG Opposes Sale of Workers’ Comp Agency

Feb 26 2010 // A proposal to sell Oklahoma’s workers’ compensation insurance agency could force businesses to pay higher rates and make the insurance unaffordable for new and high-risk employers, according to Attorney General...

Ohio Medical Consultant Sentenced to Prison for Workers’ Comp Fraud

Feb 25 2010 // The owner of a business that compiled medical reports for law firms representing injured workers has been sentenced to four years in prison for workers’ compensation fraud in Ohio, according to the Ohio Bureau of...

CompSource Oklahoma Opposes Sale-to-Highest Bidder Bills

Feb 25 2010 // Responding to the recent filing of House Bill 2662 and Senate Bill 2232 in Oklahoma, CompSource Oklahoma, the state’s workers’ compensation fund, opposes both bills, which call for the sale of CompSource to the...

Kentucky Court to Wal-Mart: Pay Workers’ Comp to Employee Who Sued

Feb 24 2010 // Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has lost its bid to deny workers compensation benefits to an employee who also received a $900,000 civil award from two third parties. The Kentucky Court of Appeals ruling on Feb. 19 in Wal-Mart Stores...

Illinois Workers’ Comp Commissioner and Chief Legal Counsel to Retire

Feb 24 2010 // Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commissioner Paul Rink and Chief Legal Counsel Kathryn Kelley are retiring, effective Feb. 26, the state’s Workers’ Compensation Commission reported. Commissioner Rink...

New York State Insurance Fund Anti-Fraud Program Netted 154 Arrests

Feb 23 2010 // The New York State Insurance Fund (NYSIF) says its program targeting workers’ compensation insurance fraud resulted in 154 arrests and $16.6 million in recoveries and estimated savings last year. NYSIF is the Empire...