Latest Workers' Compensation Headlines

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

Normandy Insurance Expands Workers’ Comp Coverage to Arkansas

Mar 26 2019 // Deerfield Beach, Florida-based workers’ compensation carrier Normandy Insurance Co. is now offering workers’ compensation insurance to small, mid-size and large businesses in Arkansas. The company said it has...

Analysis: Warren Buffett Champions an Inferior Product in THREE Policy

Mar 25 2019 // Warren Buffett, often ahead of the curve, sounded like a disrupter in a 2004 shareholder letter. Fifteen years ago, Buffett wrote, “Insurers have generally earned poor returns for a single reason: They sell a...

California Workers’ Compensation Institute Elects 2019 Board

Mar 22 2019 // Rose Barrett of the Berkshire Hathaway Group was reelected as the chair of the California Workers’ Compensation Institute board of directors for 2019.Barrett, who has served on the CWCI board since 2014 and has been...

Q&A: Mitchell International’s Hatamian Talks Workers’ Comp’s Tech Transformation

Mar 22 2019 // Mitchell International’s product management and strategy group leader, Shahin Hatamian, recently spoke with Insurance Journal’s Elizabeth Blosfield about how technology has been transforming the workers’...

California Contractor Cited for Accident That Fatally Crushed Worker

Mar 21 2019 // Cal/OSHA has cited a Bay Area contractor for serious safety violations after a worker was fatally crushed at a San Rafael construction site on Sept. 18, 2018.Investigators determined that West Coast Land and Development...

Massachusetts Man Charged in Connection with Workers’ Comp Fraud Scheme

Mar 21 2019 // The owner of a Revere, Mass.-based contracting company has been indicted in connection with a workers’ compensation insurance fraud scheme, according to Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey.Anner Valentin...

Study Examines Impact of California Workers’ Comp Formulary

Mar 20 2019 // Since California implemented its workers’ compensation formulary last year, an increasing share of drugs prescribed to injured workers are either “Exempt” from prospective utilization review or “Not...

Tesla Defends Factory Worker Safety as Injury Days-Off Rise

Mar 19 2019 // Tesla Inc. factory employees spent almost three times as many days off the job because of work-related injuries and illness in 2018 as the year before, an indication of just how much strain they were under as they...

Cooper Nominates State Rep. Goodman to North Carolina Workers’ Comp Panel

Mar 19 2019 // A sitting North Carolina legislator has been nominated by Gov. Roy Cooper to serve on the state Industrial Commission. Ken Goodman Photo courtesy of Ballotpedia Cooper told legislators at the beginning of the month of his...

OSHA Scraps Obama Workplace Injury Reporting Rule; 6 States Sue

Mar 18 2019 // Citing a concern over potential public disclosure of sensitive worker information, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) recently eliminated a requirement for businesses with 250 or more employees to...

How Workers’ Comp Brokers Can Increase Commissions by 81%

Mar 18 2019 // Workers’ compensation brokers frequently overlook a risk-free method to nearly double their commissions while improving their client’s overall financial position. The use of a captive insurance company to...

Workers’ Comp Subscription Rate in Texas Fell From 2016 to 2018

Mar 18 2019 // Between 2016 and 2018, the percentage of private sector employers participating in the workers’ compensation system in Texas fell from 78 percent to 72 percent, according to a report released in February by the state...

Before Heading to Prison, Attorney Apologizes for Major Workers’ Comp Fraud

Mar 12 2019 // Sean Enrique O’Keefe said he started out as a “humanistic attorney,” but he became a mercenary and then a criminal who netted $700,000 a year by sending San Diego workers’ compensation claimants to...

OSHA Scraps Obama Workplace Injury Reporting Rule; 6 States Sue

Mar 11 2019 // Citing a concern over potential public disclosure of sensitive worker information, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) recently eliminated a requirement that businesses with 250 or more employees...

New Hampshire High Court Rules Board Wrong to Deny Workers’ Comp for Medical Pot

Mar 8 2019 // The New Hampshire Supreme Court has ruled that a labor appeals board was wrong to determine that workers’ compensation insurance can’t reimburse an employee for the cost of medical marijuana.The court found...

Texas Canned Food Company Faces $194K in OSHA Penalties

Mar 6 2019 // The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has cited Bruce Foods Corp. – a Mexican food manufacturer based in El Paso, Texas – after an employee suffered an amputation....

Maine’s The MEMIC Group Appoints Austerman to Senior Production Underwriter

Mar 5 2019 // Workers’ compensation specialist The MEMIC Group has appointed Beth Austerman to senior production underwriter to support continued growth in the Central and Western New York markets. Austerman has more than 14 years...

Pie Keeps Growing; Workers’ Comp Startup Raises $45 Million in Latest Round

Mar 5 2019 // Pie Insurance, an insurtech selling workers’ compensation coverage online to small businesses, has completed a $45 million Series B funding round. Participating investors included SVB Capital, Sirius Group,...

Supreme Court Rules Railroad’s Payments to Injured Workers for Lost Wages Are Taxable

Mar 4 2019 // The Supreme Court has ruled that payments to injured employees for lost wages by a railway company are taxable under the Railroad Retirement Tax Act (RRTA).The opinion in BNSF Railway Co. vs. Loos by Justice Ruth Bader...

NSAIDs Overtake Opioids as Top Workers’ Comp Drug in California

Mar 4 2019 // Non-steroidal anti-inflammatories, or NSAIDs, have supplanted opioids as the most common therapeutic drug group prescribed to injured workers in California, according to a new California Workers’ Compensation...