At the WCIRB Annual Meeting, President and CEO Bill Mudge talked about the history of California Workers’ Compensation and the concerns for the future. The session started with a review of the history of California workers’ compensation. Due to a combination of unintended consequences of legislation and case law, carrier combined ratios skyrocket during the […]

At the 2019 WCIRB Annual Conference, Dave Bellusci, WCIRB Executive Vice President and Chief Actuary talked about the status of the California workers’ compensation system. Some key talking points were: Total premiums in California have dropped since 2017 after 7 straight years of increase. There are $15.7 billion in premiums forecast for 2019. Employer payroll […]

Mark Walls (Vice President – Communications & Strategic Analysis, Safety National) and Kimberly George (Senior Vice President – Corporate Development/M&A/Healthcare, Sedgwick) were joined by the following panel of public risk managers at the 2019 PRIMA Annual Conference to discuss trending topics and challenges in industry workers’ compensation. Jonathan Hall (Executive Director, Garden State Municipal Joint […]

At the 2019 NCSI Annual Meeting, Doug Holmes from Strategic Services on Unemployment & Workers’ Compensation (UWC) talked about how workers’ compensation factors into the “Medicare for All” push. Is “Medicare for All” a serious possibility? It does poll well with the public and it is a focus of the Democratic Party including all of […]

At the 2019 National Council of Self Insurers  Annual Meeting a panel discussed managing chronic pain without medications. The speakers were: Mark Pew – Preferred Medical Geralyn Datz, PhD. – Southern Behavioral Medicine Associates Becky Curtis – Take Courage Coaching Pain is your body’s reaction to a stimuli. One way to alter that reaction is […]

At the 2019 National Council of Self Insurers Annual Meeting, Joe Paduda from Health Strategy Associates discussed how changes in the healthcare marketplace are impacting the price of medical services in workers’ compensation Over half of all medical costs for workers’ compensation go to facilities. This includes hospital inpatient and outpatient services, and physician charges […]

At the 2019 NCCI Annual Issues Symposium, Dr John Howard, Director of the National Institute for Occupational Health and Safety, talked about emerging technology that will impact worker health and safety. Robotics have advanced so that they can perform three basic tasks. Sensing which is done through interpretation of data from environmental sensors. Thinking is […]

At the 2019 NCCI Annual Issues Symposium, Barry Lipton, Practice Leader and Senior Actuary for NCCI discussed a variety of recent NCCI studies. Group Health vs Workers’ Comp Pricing There are some substantial differences in how these plans are regulated. Much of group health is regulated on the Federal side, while workers’ comp is entirely […]

At the 2019 NCCI Annual Issues Symposium, Jim Guszcza, US Chief Data Scientist with Deloitte Analytics discussed the promise of artificial intelligence and data analytics holds for the workers’ compensation industry. The fearful narrative about artificial intelligence are that computers will eventually become smarter than people and will take over the world. There is also […]

At the 2019 NCCI Annual Issues Symposium, David Priebe, Vice Chairman from Guy Carpenter talked about the upcoming renewal of the TRIA backstop. Prior to 9-11 terrorism risk was included in “all risk” policies. Following those terrorist attacks the insurance marketplace indicated they were uncomfortable with terrorism risks which made securing coverage challenging for some […]