Latest Workers' Compensation Headlines

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

Maine Moves to Extend Workers’ Comp Mental Health Benefit for First Responders

Feb 9 2022 // A Maine legislative committee has signed off on a proposal to help emergency responders gain better access to mental health support.The proposal would continue a presumption that firefighters, emergency medical...

Massachusetts Excludes Supplemental Workers’ Comp From Retirees’ Formula

Feb 7 2022 // The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has clarified that a retirement board should not consider sick leave or vacation benefits that an injured employee received as a supplement to workers’ compensation payments...

Commercial Auto Among Lines With Flattening Rates in 2022, USI Forecast Predicts

Feb 7 2022 // Although it wasn’t the headline of a commercial insurance broker’s market pricing report last month, the report’s observation that “commercial auto liability coverage rates are starting to...

Illinois Supreme Court: Privacy Claims Not Barred by Workers’ Comp Act

Feb 4 2022 // The Illinois Workers’ Compensation Act (IWCA) does not bar claims for statutory damages under the state’s Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA), the Illinois Supreme Court unanimously ruled in a Feb. 3...

Texas Lumber Company Faces $389K in Penalties After Worker’s Fatal Fall

Feb 4 2022 // An investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration into fatal injuries suffered by an 86-year-old worker at a Henderson, Texas sawmill and pallet manufacturer found the...

BTIS Launches Expanded Workers’ Comp Coverage in California, Arizona, Colorado, Oregon, Nevada, Texas

Feb 2 2022 // Builders & Tradesmen’s Insurance Services Inc. announced access to an expanded workers’ compensation coverage option, which is now available in California, Arizona, Colorado, Oregon, Nevada and Texas.BTIS...

Arkansas Insurance Commissioner to Chair NAIC Workers’ Comp Task Force

Jan 28 2022 // Arkansas Insurance Commissioner Alan McClain has been appointed by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) to serve as the Chair for the Workers’ Compensation (C) Task Force, a subgroup of the...

California Business Owner Couple Nabbed in $4.5M Workers’ Comp Fraud Scheme

Jan 28 2022 // Wei Wen Wu, 54, and Feng Wen Lam, 49, both of Arcadia, California, were charged with 43 felony counts of insurance fraud, grand theft, and conspiracy after allegedly underreporting nearly $4.5 million in employee...

Vermont Workers’ Compensation Loss Costs to Drop 4.9% in April

Jan 27 2022 // Vermont businesses will see a rate decrease of 4.9% in workers’ compensation costs. The reduction will be effective on April 1, 2022, and is estimated to save Vermont employers more than $8 million in premiums over...

Georgia Committee Chair Wants More Study on PTSD Workers’ Comp Bill

Jan 27 2022 // Supporters spoke passionately Wednesday about the need for workers’ compensation insurance to cover mental health treatment for first responders, but the chair of a Georgia House committee decided to send the bill to...

OSHA Cites Connecticut Manufacturer for 48 Safety Violations After Fatality

Jan 25 2022 // After an employee of a Watertown, Connecticut metal fabrication company was electrocuted on July 14, 2021 while repairing a portable water heater, an inspection by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)...

OSHA Investigating Maine Case of Man Found Carrying Own Severed Arm

Jan 25 2022 // A man who stumbled along a street while carrying his own severed arm was saved by two public workers who saw him and happened to be trained in the use of tourniquets, authorities in Maine said.“It had to be divine...

Georgia Governor Wants to Pay off $150 Million State Workers’ Comp Backlog

Jan 24 2022 // Thanks to an unexpectedly large state budget surplus for 2021, Georgia’s governor wants to pay off a $150 million backlog of workers’ compensation benefits due to state employees. Gov. Brian Kemp’s budget...

Mississippi Supreme Court Finds Assault at Job Covered by Workers’ Comp

Jan 21 2022 // A man gets assaulted at work by two co-workers. Is the man’s recourse for his injuries limited only to the exclusive remedy of the workers’ compensation system?The Mississippi Supreme Court this month said,...

Report: California Workers’ Comp Virus Claims Spiked During December Surge

Jan 19 2022 // California workers’ compensation COVID-19 claim volume continues to track with the state’s fluctuating infection trends, as the latest monthly count of COVID workers’ comp claims jumped 172% in December...

Louisiana’s Stonetrust Goes Live with Insurity Workers’ Comp Solution

Jan 14 2022 // Insurity, a provider of cloud-based software for insurance carriers, brokers, and MGAs, has announced that workers’ compensation insurer Stonetrust Commercial Insurance Company has successfully implemented...

What the Supreme Court Justices Said in Blocking OSHA’s COVID-19 Workplace Rule

Jan 14 2022 // The Supreme Court yesterday blocked the Biden Administration from implementing an order requiring businesses with more than 100 employees to require COVID-19 vaccines or testing and masks for their employees.In National...

Supreme Court Halts OSHA Vaccine/Test Mandate; Allows Rule on Health Workers

Jan 13 2022 // A divided U.S. Supreme Court blocked the centerpiece of President Joe Biden’s push to get more people vaccinated amid a Covid-19 surge, rejecting an Occupational Safety and Health Administration rule that would have...

Connecticut Approves 14.1% Workers’ Compensation Pure Premium Reduction

Jan 13 2022 // The Connecticut Insurance Department has approved a filing with decreases of 14.1% to workers’ compensation pure premium lost costs, and an 8.2% reduction in assigned risk rates.The decreases, effective January 1,...

One80 Acquires Workers’ Compensation Wholesaler PMC in Massachusetts

Jan 12 2022 // Specialty insurance broker One80 Intermediaries reported it has acquired PMC Insurance Group, a workers’ compensation wholesale broker and program manager based in Bedford, Mass. Terms of the deal were not...