Quote of the day
"With the passage of time, the system will sink back into its old ways."
Ohio state Sen. Eric Fingerhut, a Cleveland Democrat, in support of a bill that would make several key changes to the operation of the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation
Poizner WOWs Them
Getting laughs and promising to regulate the solvency of carriers has Steve Poizner making the rounds. Hear what he had to say at a recent meeting…
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Zax Puts His Money Where His Mouth Is
One of California’s most respected carriers is helping fund a Commission study about injured workers’ real outcomes. Find out what and why in the current print edition of Workers’ Comp Executive.
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65 Percent Reserves: Senate Not Convinced by Non-Necessity
The California workers’ comp industry has mixed feelings about keeping the 65% redundant reserve requirement. The Senate wasn’t convinced to remove the requirement either. Why not? Find out who’s dirty and who’s not, in the current print edition of Workers’ Comp Executive.
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Fishing Time: Trial Lawyers Look to Hook FEHA Cases
Employers, beware—insurance professionals recommend that EPLI. Find out how FEHA cases are the new partnership between trial attorneys and applicants’ attorneys. Get all the details in the current print edition of Workers’ Comp Executive.
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FEHA Creates Huge Potentially Uncovered Expenses for Calif. Employers
With big workers’ comp awards drying up, the Fair Employment and Housing Act is becoming an attractive income alternative for the applicants’ bar. Find out what Barbara Boxer’s husband does for attorneys, in the current print edition of Workers’ Comp Executive.
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UR Enforcement Penalties Have the Industry on Edge
There’s a lot of stick but very little carrot to the latest proposed utilization review enforcement and penalty regulations, and the industry says it may undermine other reforms. Find out what its concerns are, in the current edition of Workers’ Comp Executive.
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Nevans Strives for Civility in Public Forums
Move over, Voters Injured at Work. What the industry is not ashamed to call the fringe faction of injured-workers groups is making life miserable at public hearings. Find out what DWC plans to do about it and what items it has on the regulatory agenda, all in the current print edition of Workers’ Comp Executive.
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Cruz Bustamante: Next Insurance Commissioner?
It’s probably small consolation to the employer or carrier community that Cruz Bustamante says he wants to stop his political career at insurance commissioner. If he wins, he promises to shake things up or support tweaking of reforms. Find out what he wants to do and what employers think, in the current print edition of Workers’ Comp Executive.
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Could State Fund Be in Cahoots with Unions?
State Fund has chosen a spate of legal cases with bad underlying facts to take up the legal process. Losing these cases hurts the governor’s workers’ comp reforms. Could this be a case of SCIF management subtly undermining the governor and being in “cahootage” with the unions? Free Story.
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New Jersey Supremes Rule on Intoxication
Intoxication must be the “sole cause” of an accident in order to deny workers’ compensation, the New Jersey state Supreme Court rules in a case involving a tractor-trailer driver who suffered a broken back and a fractured neck vertebra in a crash and was later found to have been legally drunk. By AP via Press of Atlantic City
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Ohio BWC to Pay $52 Million in Class Action
The beleaguered Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation stated yesterday that it will pay $52 million to injured workers who won a class-action lawsuit accusing the agency of wrongly taking back compensation payments. About 7,900 workers will receive the reimbursement for money taken under 1993 and 1995 laws that the Ohio Supreme Court later declared unconstitutional. By Andrew Welsh-Huggins, Akron Beacon Journal
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More Ohio: Lawmaker Wants Hearing on BWC Reform Bill
Ohio state Sen. Eric Fingerhut, a Cleveland Democrat, is calling for swift hearings on his bill adopting changes in the operation of Ohio’s workers’ compensation system, as recommended by a state-funded study. One proposed change would strip the power to hire the bureau administrator from the governor and give it to the bureau’s oversight commission, of which Fingerhut is a nonvoting member. Toledo Blade
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More Ohio, Part 2: Judge Sees Intimidation of Witness
Two brokers plead not guilty to charges arising out of the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation’s investment scandal. Meanwhile, a judge says one of them tried to intimidate key witness Terrence Gasper, the bureau’s former chief financial officer, by sending him a Mass card. By AP via WKYC (Cleveland)
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Canada: Harmonization Proposal Shocks Board Member
A recommendation to the Workers’ Compensation Act review panel to consider harmonizing the Yukon Territory’s board with British Columbia’s to control rising administration costs “shocked the hell out of me,” says Craig Tuton, chair of the Yukon Workers’ Compensation Health and Safety Board. By Julia Skikavich, Whitehorse Daily Star
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