Tag: Workers Comp

Commercial insurance premiums increased 8% on average in the fourth quarter, down marginally from the 8.1% rise in the third quarter, according to the Council of Insurance Agents & Brokers’ latest pricing report released Wednesday.

The increase marked the 21st consecutive quarter – more than five years – of rising premium rates, though most major lines other than property insurance saw a slowdown in increases, the report said.

Commercial property took over from umbrella liability as the line with the biggest increase, with average rates rising 16% in the fourth quarter, compared with 11.2% in the third quarter; umbrella rates rose 9.6%, compared with 11.3%; commercial auto was up 7.3%, compared with 7.6%; and general liability climbed 4.9%, compared with 5.7%.

The only line that saw a decline was workers compensation where rates fell 1.1%, compared with a 0.7% decrease in the third quarter.

Among other lines, cyber liability rates jumped 15%, but that was down from 20% in the third quarter.

By account size, large accounts saw the biggest average rate increase at 9.1%, followed by medium-size accounts at 8.3% and small accounts at 6.5%.

An Illinois home health care company must pay 69 workers a combined $1.1 million in back pay and damages after a court found the company improperly compensated the employees for hours worked, the U.S. Department of Labor announced Tuesday.

The U.S. District Court for the Central District of Illinois, Urbana Division, found Lee A. McDevitt, owner of Mattoon, Illinois-based Midwest Home Care, liable for back wages and damages after a DOL investigation determined Mr. McDevitt paid daily rates to caregivers, many of whom worked 24-hour shifts.

The workers were compensated with the daily rate regardless of the number of hours they worked, which resulted in minimum wage and overtime violations, according to the DOL.

The court also found that Mr. McDevitt violated recordkeeping requirements under the Fair Labor Standards Act.

The DOL said that following the investigation in early 2021 the company changed its payroll practices and began compensating employees on an hourly basis and paying overtime for hours worked beyond 40 in a week.

The court assessed back pay in the amount of $562,389 and additionally ordered the payment of an equal amount in liquidated damages, the DOL said.

It also dismissed a claim by the company that it was not subject to the FLSA because it operated solely within Illinois.  

 

Owners of a Texas dental practice have been ordered to compensate two fired workers with a combined $15,706 in back pay after the employees claimed they were terminated for raising concerns about workplace COVID-19 mitigation measures.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration announced Tuesday that North Richland Hills, Texas-based dental practice Roger H. Bohannan DDS Inc. will have to reimburse the employees for back pay that was lost after they were fired from their jobs as dental hygienist and dental assistant, respectively.

OSHA alleged that dentists Roger Bohannan and David Bohannan discriminated against the employees after the workers exercised their rights to express concerns about jobsite health and safety during the height of the coronavirus pandemic.

The workers were initially furloughed in March and April 2020, with the understanding that they would eventually be reinstated, but both were ultimately terminated after raising workplace COVID-19 concerns, according to OSHA.

The U.S. Department of Labor filed suit against the dentists in federal court in July 2021, and a federal judge in Northern District of Texas entered a consent judgment against the dentists earlier this month, OSHA stated.

In addition to back pay, the judgment also orders the dentists to refrain from future violations of the Occupational Safety and Health Act and requires them to provide neutral work references for wrongfully fired employees.

 

 

A Montana bill introduced Tuesday would give employees the ability to choose their treating physicians in workers compensation cases.

House Bill 719 states that an insurer, managed care organization or health care provider organization is not permitted to require that an injured worker use a particular treating physician or engage in any act of intimidation, coercion or threat for or against employees when they opt to use a particular treating doctor.

The bill was sent to the House Human Services Committee for consideration.

The direction of care for comp claims is controlled by the employer or insurer in some states, by the injured worker in others, and through a combination of the parties in other states.

A maximum $15,625 fine for a serious workplace safety violation is set to hit a multiplier in late March, when the Occupational Safety and Health Administration will begin to fine employers for each instance of a violation.

This means 10 construction workers lacking hard hats could potentially mean a $15,625 fine times 10, or $156,250. It’s a worst-case scenario, but it’s a potential reality employers will face as the agency aims to make violations that could result in death or serious injuries more costly, experts say.

So-called “instance-by-instance” penalties are nothing new — the agency has had the measure in place since 1990, though it currently only applies to violations deemed “egregious.”

The new program, announced Jan. 26 with a 60-day waiting period before enforcement, is intended to improve accountability among employers that repeatedly violate workplace health and safety rules, the Department of Labor said in a statement.

The program won’t apply just to repeat offenders — virtually every employer is on notice, according to legal experts, who say the move is in line with the Biden administration’s efforts to improve workplace safety.

This is “fully consistent with this administration in that this is part of the broader initiative to increase enforcement against employers,” said Andrew Brought, a Kansas City, Missouri-based attorney with Spencer Fane LLP.

“It is that sort of new-sheriff-in-town mentality where enforcement is king, and they are using all the tools in their toolbox to ratchet up enforcement,” said Eric Conn, Washington-based founding partner of Conn Maciel Carey LLP, noting the fines could add up.

“Imagine that you operate a metal-fabricating facility, and you’ve got 100 presses and OSHA determines that they’re all inadequately guarded,” he said. “(OSHA) could come in and instead of citing one violation, with a $15,000 penalty for not guarding your machines, they could issue a separate machine guarding violation for each machine at a facility. That’s 100 machines, so instead of a $15,000 penalty, it’s $1.5 million. That’s a lot.”

The new enforcement tool will also apply to such things as injury recordkeeping, with the potential for substantial fines for insufficient logs, he said.

John Ho, New York-based chair of the OSHA practice at Cozen O’Connor P.C., said that while the enforcement procedure will lead to heftier fines, more employers are likely to contest them, and OSHA will have its legal department kept busy proving its cases.

“That’s obviously going to provide businesses with a lot more incentive to contest these citations,” he said. “Historically, unless there was a fatality or serious injury, most employers aren’t getting hit with six figures in penalties. But if you are seeing significantly more citations and more penalties, just on a pure financial basis you’re going to give these businesses more incentive to contest these.”

Vermont lawmakers are proposing to expand workers compensation eligibility to additional classes of state employees diagnosed with job-related post-traumatic stress disorder.

Police officers, firefighters and ambulance workers are already covered under the state’s PTSD presumption. House Bill 297, filed Tuesday, would add corrections officers, employees of state-run therapeutic community residences or inpatient psychiatric hospitals, public safety workers, employees with the Family Services Division of the Department for Children and Families, Vermont Veterans’ Home workers, state attorneys and sheriffs.  

A number of other states have proposed legislation that would create a PTSD presumption for certain state workers, many of whom are employed in first-responder roles.

 

 

Proposed legislation in Montana would make workers who are injured by employer-mandated vaccinations eligible to receive workers compensation benefits.

Senate Bill 369, introduced last week, would provide workers comp coverage for employees who suffer “serious adverse events” after receiving vaccines that are a condition of employment.

Language in the proposed bill defines “serious adverse events” as death or a life-threatening illness, hospitalization, a congenital anomaly or birth defect, a persistent or significant incapacity or “substantial disruption of the ability to conduct normal life functions,” and medical events that require surgery.

The bill is not retroactive, so if signed into law employees would only be covered for injuries occurring after the effective date of the legislation.

A hearing on the bill has been scheduled for Wednesday before the Senate Public Health, Welfare, and Safety Committee. 

 

 

Operators of a seafood processing vessel were cited by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration over claims that the company exposed workers to various dangers and unsanitary conditions while at sea. 

OSHA on Thursday announced citations against Kodiak, Alaska-based East West Seafoods LLC and its owner for two repeat serious violations, 17 serious violations and one additional violation after a July 2022 investigation allegedly found murky water in the drinking supply of the F/V Pacific Producer along with other unsanitary conditions.

OSHA said crew members were also being served expired food and inspectors determined that water being used to process fish was leaking into dry storage and into the ship’s dining area.

Inspectors also uncovered various electrical hazards aboard the ship, such as ungrounded extension cords and exposed wiring, damaged and improperly installed electrical equipment, broken outlets and outlets near water, as well as a lack of fire suppression equipment.

OSHA proposed $208,983 in penalties. The company has contested the citations.

The U.S. Coast Guard aided in the investigation. 

The company was cited over similar accusations in 2012, 2014 and 2018.

In 2017, a federal judge sentenced the company and its owner, Christos Tsabouris, to five years of probation and $50,000 in fines after the U.S. Justice Department found the company intentionally discharged oily bilge water and 1,000 gallons of raw sewage into the ocean about three miles off the Alaskan coast and subsequently gave false records to the U.S. Coast Guard, according to OSHA. 

 

 

Workers compensation fraud allegations against an actress in the drama television series “Yellowstone” have gone cold, as reported by Entertainment Weekly.

Q’orianka Kilcher had been facing two felony comp fraud counts for collecting $97,000 in benefits following an injury in 2018 while on the set of “Dora and the Lost City of Gold,” the magazine reported last week.

However, a workers comp claims adjuster rewrote his initial determination that Ms. Kilcher committed insurance fraud and advised the courts that the criminal charges should be dropped, the magazine reported.

Ms. Kilcher told the magazine she felt exonerated by the dismissal of the criminal charges and wanted to use the case to help raise awareness of “worker’s rights within the workers comp system.”

 

 

A Wisconsin food safety sanitation company has paid $1.5 million in civil penalties after the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division found it illegally employed 102 children in hazardous jobs.

The DOL said Friday that Kieler, Wisconsin-based Packers Sanitation Services Inc. Ltd. had children ages 13 to 17 working in hazardous conditions during overnight shifts at 13 meat processing facilities in eight states.

The agency said at least three children who were employed by the company suffered injuries. 

The minors worked with hazardous chemicals and were ordered to clean dangerous meat-processing equipment such as back saws, brisket saws and head splitters.

The company paid the civil penalties Thursday, the DOL said.

The department called the child labor violations “systematic” and constituted a “corporatewide failure” by the company.

The federal investigation began in August 2022 and a federal complaint was filed in November.

The U.S. District Court of Nebraska entered a consent order and judgment in early December and the company agreed to take steps to comply with child labor laws at its operations across the country.

The DOL said that when government officials arrived with warrants following the investigation, adults on location attempted to derail efforts to look into the company’s employment practices.