The California Department of Industrial Relations (DIR) has determined the 2013 assessments that state law requires workers’ compensation insurers to collect from policyholders to cover the budget of the state Division of Workers’ Compensation (DWC) and five related programs set up by state lawmakers. The assessments and surcharges cover the Workers’ Compensation Administration Revolving Fund; the Uninsured...

By John Stahl, Esq. A recent Risk & Insurance webinar entitled “Big Changes Coming in Workers’ Compensation Premiums” stresses that actively reducing your “Experience Modification Factor” (“mod”) today should reap disproportionately high reductions in workers’ compensation insurance premiums tomorrow. The corollary is that not taking that initiative likely will dramatically...

I may be the lone wolf (along with Mike Sensor) here in the office this happy 5th of July, but nothing is gonna get past me and as the rest of you lay on those sweltering beaches, I am up on the skinny at the Department of Labor. Which is basically money, money and more of it....a whole new reason to hang out there on comp. Seriously, the new max rate is a whopping $645.01. The state minimum is now $215.00. The max...

Issue 4 of the Workers’ Compensation Resources Research Report ( WCRRR ) examines the employers’ costs of workers’ compensation based on the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Part I provides information on the national costs of workers’ compensation from 1986 to 2011. For employers in the private sector, costs dropped for the sixth year in a row and were 1.88 percentage of payroll...

Cost containment is by far the number one workers' compensation insurance concern of employers for the next 12 months, a new study shows. Fifty-nine percent of employers say they are very or somewhat concerned about cost containment in 2012. Employers are also concerned about increasing exposures, renewals and rising fraud behaviors. The 2012 P&C Workers' Compensation & Safety Survey was conducted from...

Liberty Mutual plans to appeal the judge's order. The dispute centers on allegations that AIG intentionally underestimated its workers' comp premiums to avoid premium taxes and substantial residual market charges before 1996. Read more at InsuranceNewsNet . For more information about LexisNexis products and solutions connect with us through our corporate site .

A new California Workers’ Compensation Institute analysis of more than 10 years’ worth of data compiled by the California Office of Self-Insurance Plans (OSIP) shows that for the fifth year in a row, increases in the average loss per claim, led by escalating medical losses, pushed up total workers' compensation costs for cities, counties and other public agencies in the state last year. OSIP's latest...

By Karen C. Yotis, Esq. When a workers’ compensation maven of Rebecca Shafer’s caliber shares her expertise about implementing cost containment best practices, industry professionals can’t afford to do anything but listen. Likewise, now that Shafer has released the 2012 edition of her guidebook Workers Compensation Management Program: Reduce Costs 20% to 50% , risk managers, adjusters, vendors, attorneys...

Beginning January 1, 2012, the Division of Workers’ Compensation (DWC) will begin its six month collection of data to assess insurance carriers for Performance Based Oversight (PBO). The PBO period will last until June 30, 2011. The PBO measures are as follows: Timely Initial Payment of Benefits (40%) Timely EDI Filing of Initial Payment (10%) Timely Payment of Medical Benefits (40%) Timely Medical EDI Filing...

The mileage rate that workers’ comp claims administrators pay injured workers for travel related to medical treatment or evaluation of their injuries will remain at 55.5¢ per mile for travel on or after January 1, 2012, regardless of the date of injury. California Labor Code §4600 (e)(2), in conjunction with Government Code §19820 and Department of Personnel Administration regulations, requires...

The California Department of Industrial Relations (DIR) has calculated the 2012 assessments that state law requires workers' compensation insurers to collect from policyholders in order to fund the budget of the state Division of Workers' Compensation (DWC) and five related programs established by state lawmakers. The assessments and surcharges cover the Workers' Compensation Administration Revolving Fund;...

Largest Claims Develop Down and Smaller Ones Develop Up Over Time By John M. Stahl, Esq. A September 2011 NCCI research brief entitled “Workers’ Compensation Excess Loss Development” followed up on NCCI’s 2007 study of the same name. The executive summary of the current study explained that “large loss and excess development is relevant to calculating excess loss factors used in retrospective...

Workers’ compensation claim frequency among private self-insured employers in California registered a slight decline last year, but only because the incidence of low cost medical-only claims declined according to a new California Workers’ Compensation Institute (CWCI) analysis of data compiled by the state Office of Self-Insurance Plans (OSIP). Despite the marginal decline in claim frequency, and the ninth...