Florida Regulators Disapprove NCCI’s 1% WC Rate Increase Proposal
Florida Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty today issued an order notifying the National Council on Compensation Insurance (NCCI) that its 1-percent proposed annual rate filing increase in Florida’s workers’ compensation insurance rates has been disapproved.
The Florida Office of Insurance Regulation said the filing reflected an increase in production expenses that were not supported by the information submitted by NCCI.
Regulators said NCCI can re-submit the rate filing to the Office of Insurance Regulation and a 0.7-percent increase would be approved to become effective on January 1, 2014 for new and renewal business. This approval would represent a 56.0-percent cumulative reduction in Florida workers’ compensation rates as a result of legislative reforms introduced in 2003 and keep Florida rates comparable to other states.
“Although a marginal rate increase is necessary for worker’s compensation insurance in Florida, the underlying factors causing the spike in rate increases over the last four years still merit legislative attention,” stated Florida’s Insurance Commissioner Kevin M. McCarty.
“Evidence from the hearing demonstrated that rates could be reduced by as much as 8.3 percent if the reimbursement for hospital inpatient, hospital outpatient and ambulatory surgical centers were statutorily limited to 120 percent of Medicare reimbursement,” Commissioner McCarty stated.
Source: Florida Office of Insurance Regulation