I underwrite Florida Work Comp for a carrier, but I’m also an employee, so I can fully appreciate both sides of the WC issue in Florida. Requiring employees, whom are hurt and out of work, to pay for legal representation, will obviously prevent them from being able to receive due process. That proposal is ridiculous, cruel, and most importantly, will be reversed in the Florida Supreme Court quicker than Castellanos. FL WC reform needs to include carriers being able to deviate from the NCCI ratings, a cap on attorneys’ fees with a regressive scale, so that injured workers can have access to representation for smaller issues such as an MRI in the Castellanos case, and a time cap, with a specific resolution for indemnification on total temporary disabilities to address the Bradley Westphal case.
Anonymous, evidently you misinterpreted the language. The majority of states have the claimant attorney fees paid “out of any award” not money up front by the injured worker nor any fee if not awarded benefits. It gets trickier if it is a medical only issue. In that case to ensure representation a fee assessed to the carrier is appropriate.
Wait a minute. I thought that it against state statue for repair contractors to act as insurance adjusters when dealing with insurance carriers? So now contractors will be treated as public adjusters, without being licensed nor bonded, to represent the insured in dealing with insurance carriers on claims? I believe a large class action suit is right around the corner.
So now it is legal for contractor’s to represent the insured as public adjuster’s as long as they follow some simple rules? There is a Florida statue that prohibits this activity. They are not licensed as an adjuster and not bonded. I can see a large class action suit coming.
TC is correct…Attorney fees are paid “out of any award” but my real beef is that settlement negotiations are forced onto injured worker at the last minute before final disposition by the Judge. Therefore leaving the claimant to only two choices…Then the WC Insurance Carrier forces a yearly annuity over a period of years for the Medicare Set-Aside payment instead of a lump sum payment.
My claim took over TWO years to be settled, while still incurring out-of-pocket travel expenses to the courts. The process is much too long and the attorneys, generally, all have the same mentality making their insider deals at the expense of the claimant.
I underwrite Florida Work Comp for a carrier, but I’m also an employee, so I can fully appreciate both sides of the WC issue in Florida. Requiring employees, whom are hurt and out of work, to pay for legal representation, will obviously prevent them from being able to receive due process. That proposal is ridiculous, cruel, and most importantly, will be reversed in the Florida Supreme Court quicker than Castellanos. FL WC reform needs to include carriers being able to deviate from the NCCI ratings, a cap on attorneys’ fees with a regressive scale, so that injured workers can have access to representation for smaller issues such as an MRI in the Castellanos case, and a time cap, with a specific resolution for indemnification on total temporary disabilities to address the Bradley Westphal case.
Anonymous, evidently you misinterpreted the language. The majority of states have the claimant attorney fees paid “out of any award” not money up front by the injured worker nor any fee if not awarded benefits. It gets trickier if it is a medical only issue. In that case to ensure representation a fee assessed to the carrier is appropriate.
Wait a minute. I thought that it against state statue for repair contractors to act as insurance adjusters when dealing with insurance carriers? So now contractors will be treated as public adjusters, without being licensed nor bonded, to represent the insured in dealing with insurance carriers on claims? I believe a large class action suit is right around the corner.
So now it is legal for contractor’s to represent the insured as public adjuster’s as long as they follow some simple rules? There is a Florida statue that prohibits this activity. They are not licensed as an adjuster and not bonded. I can see a large class action suit coming.
TC is correct…Attorney fees are paid “out of any award” but my real beef is that settlement negotiations are forced onto injured worker at the last minute before final disposition by the Judge. Therefore leaving the claimant to only two choices…Then the WC Insurance Carrier forces a yearly annuity over a period of years for the Medicare Set-Aside payment instead of a lump sum payment.
My claim took over TWO years to be settled, while still incurring out-of-pocket travel expenses to the courts. The process is much too long and the attorneys, generally, all have the same mentality making their insider deals at the expense of the claimant.