Quote of the day
"People are more than upset. If I told you you had to pay a $100 traffic ticket you'd be upset. If I told you [you] had to come up with $27,000 a year, you'd be thinking, 'Where am I going to come up with that money?'"
Jamie Santo, insurance agency owner and chairman of the Greater Salem (N.H.) Chamber of Commerce, about a law requiring companies with no employees or payroll to acquire workers' compensation coverage
Granite State Bill is Insurance Industry’s ‘Biggest Issue by Far’
A recent New Hampshire law ends a workers’ compensation exemption for all corporations and LLCs with no employees and no payroll, a response to the practice of independent construction contractors, who don’t pay unemployment, Social Security or workers’ comp payroll levies, underbidding jobs. Insurance agents are warning contractors to be prepared to fork over 20 percent of their income after expenses in premiums. By Bob Sanders, New Hampshire Business Review
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Delaware Commissioner Pledges to Slash 2008 Rates
In his most recent move to rein in the nation’s highest workers’ compensation rates, Insurance Commissioner Matt Denn announces that he will order insurers to cut rates by 17.75 percent to 22 percent in 2008. Denn says he is focusing on the amount of reserves insurance carriers set aside for future medical losses. By Leslie A. Pappas, Wilmington News-Journal
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Trial Transcript Holds Up Coin Dealer’s Appeal
The appeal process for Tom Noe, the Ohio political fundraiser and coin dealer convicted of stealing from rare coin funds he managed on behalf of the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation, is stuck because a typed transcript of his lengthy state trial remains unfinished. By Joe Vardon, Toledo Blade [With Photo] Go to the Full Story…
City of Charleston Pays Families of Firefighters Lost in Blaze
Under the discretion of the state workers’ comp commission, families of six of the nine Charleston, S.C., firefighters who perished in a June furniture store blaze have received more than $2 million from a fund set up by the city. By AP via WIS-TV (Columbia, S.C.)
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Mother of Bear Victim Pleads for Wilderness Safety Research
The mother of a worker mauled to death by a grizzly bear while staking mining claims in the Yukon for a geosciences firm visits the territory to ask officials including the territory’s workers’ compensation board, which this year charged the employer with negligence, to fund wilderness work safety research. CBC News
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Salt Lake Meth Cops Detox in Controversial Program
“I lived on ibuprofen. Since I’ve been here, I haven’t touched ibuprofen,” says Kelly Call, one of eight Salt Lake City police who disassembled methamphetamine labs and now uses a controversial sauna detoxification treatment based on Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard’s teachings to treat the health effects of the exposures. By Nate Carlisle and Lisa Rosetta, Salt Lake Tribune [With Photo] Go to the Full Story…
Volunteer State Ruling Affects On-Site Rec Programs
A recent Tennessee Supreme Court workers’ comp case involving an employee who died from a heart attack, which doctors linked to a basketball game he played on company property during his break, likely will force companies to reconsider the risks of providing on-site physical fitness activities for workers, lawyers say. By Sheila Burke, Tennessean [With Photo] Go to the Full Story…