The Covid-19 pandemic introduced a host of anomalies into workers’ comp claim data, but one of the more puzzling has been the high percentage of indemnity-only claims linked to the virus. Typically, indemnity-only claims are relatively rare and account for less than 2% of all workers’ comp claims, but among the Covid-19 claims, they amount …
Employers across the country saw an 8.5% reduction in the average cost of workers’ compensation during the Covid-19 pandemic. California employers saw a more significant cost decrease but still paid far more than employers in all but six other states. A new study by the National Academy of Social Insurance (NASI) shows that the nationwide …
Persistently low rates of new claims for Covid in California’s workers’ comp system have analysts at the Workers’ Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau finally agreeing that we have transitioned from the pandemic phase of the virus to the endemic phase. After accounting for nearly 40% of all workers’ comp indemnity claims filed in January amid a …
Earlier this week, Governor Newsom vetoed Assembly Bill 1820 (Arambula), which would have required the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement (DLSE) within the Department of Industrial Relations (DIR) to establish …
Workers’ comp premium plummeted in 2020 with the rapid shutdown of the economy in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic and remained flat through 2021. Industry experts at the Workers’ Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau are predicting a sharp return to pre-pandemic levels, and the latest industry results are in line with projections. The Bureau is …
Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara rejected a call from the Workers’ Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau and his staff’s recommendation when nixing a plan to allow Covid-19 claims to count against employers’ X-Mods. Covid claims remain excluded from the experience rating process. The Bureau is a private organization with quasi-governmental responsibility, financially supported exclusively by insurance carriers …
The Workers’ Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau filed for a 7.6% increase overall for advisory pure premium rates. The final amount is slightly larger than initially projected during the Governing Committee deliberations. It accounts for the addition of a Covid-19 surcharge on all employers. The underlying increase without a surcharge is 6.9%. An independent actuary will …
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal is ending its involvement in a case claiming that an employer is liable for the Covid-19 that its employee’s wife contracted after he caught the virus in the workplace. The federal justices formally asked California’s highest court to answer two critical questions to either end the case or move …