Tag: Workers Comp

Hartford Financial Services Group Inc. on Friday reported first-quarter net income of $530 million, a 21% increase compared with the same period last year.

The increase was attributed to a decrease in net realized losses and higher group benefits results, driven by lower group life mortality, among other things, company executives said during a conference call with analysts. 

The company’s commercial lines combined ratio worsened from the 2022 first quarter, dipping to 92.7% from 90.3%, primarily due to higher catastrophe losses and less favorable accident reserve development.

The insurer reported $3.11 billion in commercial lines written premium, a 10% increase over the same period last year. Profit for the business increased 10% compared with last year’s first quarter to $421 million.

“We are particularly pleased by the growth in property lines,” said Chairman and CEO Christopher Swift.

Mr. Swift said the company continues to measure the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and plans to “adjust course as necessary.”

“We anticipate continued growth in strong margins across our businesses,” he said.

Mr. Swift said workers compensation insurance pricing remains positive, and comp frequency and severity rates are, “right in line with our expectations, and maybe even slightly better.”

 

A former Walmart employee suing over a workplace shooting has a month to refile her complaint after a Virginia judge determined the case likely falls under the jurisdiction of workers compensation.  

Briana Tyler filed a $50 million lawsuit against Walmart Inc. after she was nearly shot in November by colleague Andre Bing during a rampage that claimed the lives of six workers at a Chesapeake Walmart.

The suit was originally filed in federal court but later refiled in state court. The now-deceased Mr. Bing is also a defendant.   

Walmart sought dismissal, saying Ms. Tyler’s injuries should be covered by workers comp, but Ms. Tyler argues there is an exception because she was personally targeted by Mr. Bing.

“If the attack is personal, then it is outside of the purview of the workers comp act,” said Mark Favaloro, Ms. Tyler’s attorney.

On Wednesday, a Chesapeake Circuit Court judge sustained Walmart’s demurrer seeking dismissal on the basis that the case should be comp exclusive. The judge agreed, but Ms. Tyler was given 30 days to refile the suit with additional information on why it should remain in the tort system, Mr. Favaloro said.  

Ms. Tyler alleges that while the bullets missed her, she was still targeted specifically by Mr. Bing during the shooting.

“The plaintiff was able to escape the rampaging Bing by running as fast as she could, injuring both of her legs and experiencing acute chest pain while being chased by Bing,” the suit states.

The suit accuses Walmart of failing to terminate Mr. Bing even though he exhibited violent tendencies toward co-workers.

 

A Texas contractor has been cited by the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration after a worker died during a trench collapse late last year.

OSHA announced Tuesday the two repeat citations against Buffalo, Texas-based R Construction Civil LLC over the October workplace death, which occurred during excavation operations at a job site near the city of Manvel, which is south of Houston.

During the incident, the worker became pinned against a mechanical compactor and then died after a trench wall caved in.

OSHA said the company failed to provide a means to safely exit the excavation site, failed to keep spoil piles at least two feet away from the excavation’s edge, and failed to offer an adequate protective system inside the excavation site to protect workers against cave-in hazards.

The contractor was also given one serious citation for not conducting daily site inspections.  

OSHA proposed $257,822 in penalties. The company has 15 days to contest the citations.   

 

 

Shipping, transportation and warehousing companies were among the industries singled out by the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health in its annual list of unsafe employers.

National COSH, in its report released Wednesday, also highlights that workplace fatalities are on the rise and that Latino and Black workers are dying on the job at a higher rate than other workers — consistent with federal data.

Among the companies highlighted included Amazon Inc., FedEx Corp., and Norfolk Southern Corp., which have all been the focus of workplace safety investigations by the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration for upticks in injuries. 

 

Sedgwick Claims Management Services Inc. announced Wednesday the introduction of its artificial intelligence tool, Sidekick, a Microsoft OpenAI GPT-4 integration designed to improve workflow for insurance claims professionals.

The platform is aimed at improving claims documentation speed and accuracy and will automate other routine tasks. It is Sedgwick’s first use case of GPT technology.  

“When you improve the speed and accuracy of completing repetitive and routine task-based activities, it allows our unbelievably talented claims professionals to both expedite the cycle time of a claim and spend more time on the things that are fundamental to both the claims experience and the claims outcome,” said Sedgwick CEO Michael Arbour.

The platform enables Sedgwick claims professionals to use generative artificial intelligence performance and language processing on daily tasks.

Mr. Arbour said the development of large-model, language-based generative artificial intelligence such as GPT-4, when embedded into Sedgwick’s application environments, “is going to have an incredible impact on our ability to improve the results we produce for our clients, the experience of the claims process, and the day-to-day experience of working at Sedgwick.”

Automating work processes will give claims workers the ability to focus more on the individuals served by Sedgwick, and spend less time on routine tasks, the company stated. 

“We wake up thinking about ways to use technology and continually invest in innovation to help make those things better, not just from an economic standpoint but also from an experiential standpoint,” Mr. Arbour said.

Sedgwick says future versions of the application will likely include producing entire claim summaries, identifying risk factors on claims and programs and exploring emerging data trends. 

 

 

Colorado lawmakers have introduced legislation that would make various changes to the state’s workers compensation system, including increasing legal fees in comp cases.  

House Bill 1076, filed on Tuesday, would increase workers comp contingent attorneys fees to a flat 25%. Currently, attorneys fees over 20% of the amount of contested benefits are presumed to be unreasonable.

The measure would also amend existing law by increasing the limit on injured workers’ medical impairment benefits from 12 weeks to 36 weeks, allow injured workers to request a hearing when their temporary total disability benefits end based on a doctor’s return-to-work release, and remove a current provision authorizing injured workers to petition comp regulators before receiving replacements for certain medical devices.

The measure would also specify that any medical benefits recommended by a physician after maximum medical improvement is reached are not limited to any specific medical treatment.

Another proposed change pertains to medical records. Under existing law, insurers must provide independent medical examiners and other parties with a complete copy of an injured worker’s entire medical file, but the bill would limit the required medical records to only those relating to the specific work injury.

The bill was sent to the Senate Business, Labor, and Technology Committee for consideration.     

 

A reversal of a years-long trend that saw dips in drug use among injured workers, prescriptions in workers compensation inched up in 2022 with drug utilization per claim increasing 2.6%, costs per claim increasing 3.7%, and costs per prescription rising 1.1%, according to a report released Wednesday by Enlyte Group LLC.

Enlyte, which provides comp services, also found the top utilization trends included a 17.7% increase in migraine medications and an 11% increase in topicals, typically prescribed for pain management and almost always listed as among the most prescribed in comp.

Driving the increase in migraine medications are expensive brand prescriptions available to injured workers.

The report also found that opioid use continued to decline, as in years past. Yet, prescriptions for Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, anticonvulsant medications for nerve pain, and antidepressants — all listed as opioid alternatives — increased 2.7%, 2.8% and 3.5%, respectively.

 

 

 

An administrative law judge ruled employees at a Massachusetts behavioral health facility were not protected against workplace violence, the decision coming more than three years after the employer was cited by the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

OSHA announced the finding Tuesday that UHS of Delaware Inc. and UHS of Fuller Inc. failed to take steps to prevent employees from being harmed at Fuller Hospital in Attleboro.

OSHA cited the companies for exposing employees to workplace violence in late 2019. The companies contested the citation before the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission and a judge affirmed the serious citation.

The judge also upheld proposed OSHA abatement measures designed to protect employees from workplace violence, such as providing workers with panic alarms, providing trained security personnel on all shifts and ensuring units are staffed to handle behavioral health emergencies.

The companies, which operate the hospital as a single employer, were also sanctioned for destroying video surveillance showing incidents of workplace violence.

The judge’s decision was appealed to the full Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission.

OSHA’s investigation stemmed from complaints by employees who said the hospital’s lack of safeguards led to them being kicked, punched, slapped, bitten and having their hair ripped out.

Some workers also suffered repeated concussions.

OSHA said more than 500 incidents occurred over a seven-month period in 2019.

Fuller Hospital provides inpatient hospitalization to adolescents and adults. 

 

 

 

A Watervliet, New York, woman was found swimming in workers compensation fraud after claiming she attended $26,983 worth of aquatic therapy at her local YMCA over seven years.

Eunice Ting pleaded guilty to defrauding the U.S. Department of Labor, Office of Workers’ Compensation Program, and will be sentenced in August, according to CBS 6 in Albany.

The DOL’s investigation found that between December 2013 and March 2020 she submitted “hundreds of materially false and fraudulent forms” to the federal comp insurance program, the station reported.