Washington: Workers’ comp premium changes take effect
Changes in workers’ compensation premiums took effect January 1 in the state of Washington: The average premium rate for hours worked in 2022 will go up 3.1 percent. With this increase, the average rate per $100 of payroll in 2022 will be $1.53, a 1.4 percent increase over 2021. KXRO
Women with female doctors do better in workers’ comp cases: Study
Female employees injured on the job are more likely to qualify for workers’ compensation disability payments and to receive higher payment amounts when their claims are evaluated by female doctors, according to a new study from economics researchers at The University of Texas at Austin and the University of Illinois at Chicago. Their work provides the first evidence that a doctor’s gender could be a significant factor in gender disparities observed in medical evaluations. The study, released in the National Bureau of Economic Research working paper series, analyzed administrative data from the Texas workers’ compensation system from the years 2013 through 2017. UT News
Injury claims often murky in home incidents
As remote work enters another year as a mainstream concept, injuries in the workplace have become a proliferating grey zone employers, employment lawyers and workers’ compensation boards must navigate. Overall, total workplace injury claims haven’t risen and aren’t expected to, according to many employment lawyers, but delineating work tasks from personal ones in the case of injury is becoming an increasing area of focus. Vancouver Sun
Report: 25 Florida state employees who filed workers’ comp claims died from COVID-19
The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in the deaths of 25 state of Florida employees and forced the state to pay tens of millions in lost wages. State economists in December concluded that by June the state will have paid out $43.1 million to sick employees who miss more than seven days because of the infection. The 2019-20 annual report does not indicate that any of the 570 employees who filed workers’ compensation claims died. Florida Politics
Amazon employees describe struggle to get compensation after injuries
A Washington Post analysis in June found Amazon warehouse workers were more likely to get injured than staff at similar companies such as Walmart. Amazon had the highest rate of serious injuries at its warehouses in the past four years, according to the Post, but some employees say it was difficult for them to get compensation and time off after being injured at work. East County Gazette
Canada: Saskatchewan WCB to end relief measures for workers injured by COVID-19
The Saskatchewan Workers’ Compensation Board plans to end its cost relief measures for those employees injured by COVID-19, closing a program that has been in place for nearly two years. The WCB funded the cost relief for pandemic claims through its occupational disease reserve as a temporary measure to support Saskatchewan employers. Many of the WCB’s other employer relief measures concluded at the end of last July. Moosejaw Today