A bill filed in the Illinois General Assembly would transfer the responsibilities for investigating workers’ compensation fraud to the state insurance department. Under HB 2947, the pending business of the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission’s Insurance Compliance Division would be transferred to the Illinois Department of Insurance. he change would transfer “all powers, duties, rights, responsibilities, personnel, books, records, papers, documents,…
Lawmakers in Illinois will consider making post-traumatic stress disorder compensable for certain first responders under a bill presented on Friday. H.B. 3081 states that “post-traumatic stress disorder is to be rebuttably presumed to arise out of and to be causally connected to the hazards of employment” for firefighters, emergency medical technicians, and paramedics. Lawmakers also read H.B. 3697, which states…
Brain-injury workers compensation claims cost more than double other types of lost-time claims, according to a report released Friday by the National Council for Compensation Insurance. The report said that among active claims between 2013 and 2018, 15% of permanent-injury total claims included a traumatic brain injury (TBI). A TBI is defined as physical trauma to the head that alters…
The Indiana Senate on Tuesday passed a bill that would clarify the statute of limitations and increase benefits for injured workers receiving workers compensation. S.B. 220, which passed the state’s Senate in a 43-3 vote, would start the two-year statute of limitations for filing an application for the adjustment of claims on the last date a payment was made for…
Illinois lawmakers introduced a bill on Thursday that would clarify that injuries sustained by employees while traveling to and from work do not arise out of and in the course of employment except under a few circumstances. H.B. 2965 would modify existing statutes to clarify that an accident while traveling to and from the workplace is not compensable. The bill…
Workers compensation claims for COVID-19 last year were far less than the doomsday predictions made early in the pandemic, but experts are concerned that lingering symptoms and rebuttable presumptions in some states may negatively impact the industry going forward. In November and December combined, the U.S. reported 11 million new COVID-19 cases, with insurers and ratings agencies seeing corresponding jumps…
The rate of serious injuries and fatalities continues to hold steady despite declines in overall recordable incidents, though companies with strong safety cultures are less likely to report these serious incidents, according to a report released Monday by information management company ISN Software Corp. ISN analyzed more than 55,000 recordable incidents at U.S. companies between 2017 and 2019, finding that…
As employers wait to see whether the Occupational Safety and Health Administration will create a temporary workplace safety standard for COVID-19, their legal experts hope the federal government avoids what they contend are costly and inflexible measures put in place by individual state OSHAs. President Joe Biden on Jan. 21 signed an executive order calling on OSHA by Feb. 4…
Health care workers pose the greatest risk of developing COVID-19 infections and, relatedly, have been most likely to submit workers compensation claims, according to the results of a study released Tuesday. The study, published in Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine and conducted by AF Group in Lansing, Michigan, and Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, revealed that…
A former truck driver for a gas and chemical company is alleging he was told to resign or be fired in retaliation for filing a workers’ compensation claim. Joel Straus filed a complaint Jan. 4 in the Madison County Circuit Court against Air Products and Chemicals Inc., alleging retaliatory discharge. Straus was employed as a truck driver for Air Products…
