Tag: Workers Comp

The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration said Monday it cited an Oklahoma contractor following the death of a worker in a May trench collapse.

OSHA cited Caney-based Rocking L Dozer and Land Management LLC for one willful violation for failing to implement protective systems in a trench deeper than five feet.

A project manager at a McAlester work site became trapped in the trench while company employees were putting gravel rock around a newly replaced 24-inch sewer line. The project manager died in the 10-foot-deep excavation when the trench collapsed.

The contractor failed to provide safe entry into or out of the trench, it allowed standing water in the trench, and it failed to perform daily inspections, OSHA stated.

In addition to the citation, OSHA proposed $82,149 in penalties.

The company has 15 business days to contest the citation and proposed penalties. 

 

 

The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration said Monday that it cited a Pennsylvania dumpster manufacturer for exposing workers to a variety of safety and health hazards.

OSHA cited Milton-based Custom Container Solutions LLC for two willful, three repeat, and 23 serious and other-than-serious violations after investigators conducted a targeted inspection of the company’s Milton facility in March. The agency proposed penalties of $484,401.

The company was cited for failing to provide welders with personal protective equipment, failing to establish an energy control program, and failing to ensure proper machine guarding.

Custom Container Solutions, which also has a facility in Hadley, Pennsylvania, manufactures steel containers for companies working in waste management, recycling and energy.

The company has 15 business days to contest the citation and proposed fines.

The National Council on Compensation Insurance is proposing an average 9.8% reduction in voluntary loss costs for Connecticut workers compensation insurance costs, effective Jan. 1.

The filing is based on premium and loss experience for policy years 2020-2022 and excludes claims for COVID-19. NCCI said the primary driver of the proposal is improved experience.

Lost-time claim frequency has generally been declining in the state. Although claims increased in policy years 2020 and 2021, frequency declined a cumulative 5% over the period from 2018 to 2021.

Average indemnity and medical cost-per-case figures have been declining and the decrease in severity is more than enough to offset increases in frequency.

The Connecticut Insurance Department on Wednesday opened a 30-day public comment period on the NCCI rate filing.

WorkCompCentral is a sister publication of Business Insurance. More stories here.

 

 

 

An appeals court in Arizona on Thursday affirmed workers compensation death benefits in the case of a design engineer whose wife claimed he caught COVID-19 at work while conversing with a co-worker and died weeks later.

Kenneth Zerby, who was considered high-risk for COVID-19 complications as a prediabetic and was immunocompromised following a kidney transplant in 2003, was working for Western Millwork in Phoenix when he contracted the virus in October 2020, according to Western Millwork, Cincinnati Insurance Co. v. Zerby, filed in the Arizona Court of Appeals, Division One.

His employer disputed that he caught the virus at work, which his wife claimed was the result of a conversation with a co-worker who tested positive in the days following. Instead, lawyers for Western Millwork argued Mr. Zerby caught the virus while having dinner at a restaurant, where he and his wife sat outdoors with friends, including another co-worker, one of whom tested positive days later, according to court records.

An administrative law judge with the Industrial Commission of Arizona ruled in favor of Ms. Zerby. The appeals court, weighing medical testimony that put Mr. Zerby’s infection date at the time of the work meeting, affirmed, writing that the man’s employment required him to “have contact with project managers such as (the infected co-worker) from time to time” and that the “record does not adequately support that (he) was exposed outside of work… during the relevant time when he could have become infected.”

 

 

The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration said Friday that it cited a Florida contractor following the fatal fall of a worker through a roof in March.

OSHA cited Hialeah-based Sealed Tight Roofing Inc. for one willful violation and two serious violations and proposed $84,379 in fines.

The worker was killed in a 40-foot fall while working on a commercial property in Miami Gardens.

OSHA said Sealed Tight Roofing failed to provide employees with adequate fall protection or personal fall arrest systems and also failed to install covers or guardrails around holes in the roof.

The company has 15 business days to contest the citation and proposed fines.  

Women in the 16th and 17th centuries in England experienced difficulties with equal job treatment mostly because they were more likely to be accused of being witches, according to a historian who published her study in the journal Gender & History.

Cambridge University historian Philippa Carter posits that the types of employment available to women at that time came with a higher risk of facing witchcraft allegations when things went wrong.

For example, as Ms. Carter explained, many of those jobs — in health care, childcare, livestock care — often left women in danger of being accused of “magical sabotage” when death, disease or spoilage occurred.  

“This article has considered witchcraft accusation as a potential fallout of certain kinds of work-related incidents, likeliest to occur in certain high-risk lines of work,” Ms. Carter wrote. “Relatively rare, but potentially fatal, it was only one of many gender-differentiated occupational hazards.”

The study says that the deaths of sheep and cattle at the time led to a typical accusation of witchcraft against women, as they were more likely to be livestock workers than men during that era. 

 

 

 

 

Workers compensation claims management that utilizes artificial intelligence can help reduce the need for legal involvement in lost-time claims, according to findings from an AI software provider.

Gradient AI, a Boston-based company offering AI services for the insurance industry, said it analyzed more than 200,000 lost-time comp claims from more than 60 insurers during a 10-year period and found there to be a 15% reduction in legal involvement in lost-time claims using AI.

The study also showed a 5% reduction in lost-time claims costs, which researchers said can equate to $3.5 million annually.

The study attributes the savings to providing insurance adjusters with early alerts regarding injury severity and claims status changes.

The use of AI models enabled insurers to manage comp claims more efficiently and effectively, resulting in reduced legal involvement and cost savings, the study said.  

Researchers said AI helped reduce attorney involvement because models could assess claim complexities, predict the likelihood of legal involvement and provide early warnings to claims adjusters.  

 

 

 

The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration said Wednesday that it cited a Georgia concrete pipe manufacturer after a 19-year-old worker was killed at a Florida worksite in March.

OSHA cited Newnan, Georgia-based Foley Products Co. LLC for one willful and six serious violations for exposing workers to crushed-by hazards by allowing them to enter cement mixers without following energy control procedures.

The agency proposed $245,546 in penalties.

The fatality occurred at a worksite in Cantonment, Florida, when the worker, who was inside a mixer chipping away at hardened concrete, became trapped when the machine started.

Foley Products has 15 business days to contest the citations and proposed penalties.

The National Council on Compensation Insurance is recommending that Colorado regulators reduce advisory loss costs for the voluntary market by 3.4%, effective Jan. 1.

The recommendation is based on premium and loss experience for policy years 2019-2021 and excludes claims resulting from COVID-19, according to the filing submitted to the Colorado Insurance Division. 

“The majority of the proposed change is attributable to improved experience,” NCCI said in its analysis. “The change in experience is partially offset by the impact of recent updates to the Colorado medical fee schedule and the change in the loss adjustment expense provision.”

If approved, voluntary loss costs will have decreased by a cumulative 34.7% since 2020.

The Colorado insurance commissioner is holding a virtual public hearing on Sept. 29.

WorkCompCentral is a sister publication of Business Insurance. More stories here.