Crisis, what crisis? Just a year after dire predictions that the state’s economy was in peril due to rising insurance costs, Florida businesses could see an average 9.3 percent reduction in workers’ compensation premiums in the coming year under a rate filing Insurance Commissioner David Altmaier will consider later this month.
A state appeals court has upheld a 14.5 percent increase in workers’ compensation insurance premiums, rejecting legal arguments that it was approved in violation of Florida’s open-government laws. “This argument ignores the plain language of the statute and the ordinary meaning of the terms within it,” a three-judge panel of the 1st District Court of Appeal in Tallahassee ruled Tuesday. “Accordingly, we reverse the trial court’s final order, and remand for reinstatement of OIR’s final order issued on Oct. 5,…
With the House version of workers’ compensation reform, our state legislators are dangerously close to repeating the mistakes of the past. We cannot have a lopsided system that creates a chasm between the army of lawyers and executives who represent workers’ comp insurance companies and the injured worker who needs a competent lawyer to fight for the benefits that their employer has purchased. Thankfully, the Florida Senate has taken the lead in advocating for effective, meaningful reforms that we know…
The Senate Banking and Insurance Committee voted 7-1 Monday to approve legislation that would require workers’ compensation carriers to compete on price rather than propose premium levels through a common ratings agency, and that would allow workers to pay attorneys hourly rates if they take insurers to court. The ‘No” vote was by Sen. George Gainer, a Republican from Panama City. The next stop is the Appropriations Committee. SB 1582, by Rob Bradley, would convert Florida into a “loss cost” state…
The National Council on Compensation Insurance will take no position on a Senate bill that would require workers’ compensation carriers to propose their own rates to the Office of Insurance Regulation. “We don’t have an opinion in it. We operate in both environments,” Susan Donegan, chief regulatory services officer for NCCI, said in a telephone interview Monday. SB 1582 would shift Florida from a “fully administered” state to a “loss cost” system. That means that instead of proposing premium levels…
The chairman of a key House subcommittee said Wednesday that legislation to address rising worker’s compensation premiums will include curbs on attorney fees, “the biggest driver of the premiums.” Danny Burgess, chairman of the Insurance & Banking Subcommittee, spoke following a hearing into a raft of possible solutions to escalating worker’s compensation premiums. Also on Wednesday, the 1st District Court of Appeal scheduled oral argument for Feb. 22 in a challenge to a 14.5 percent rate increase that began to take effect…
The Office of Insurance Regulation and an organization that proposes workers’ compensation premium rates have filed legal briefs refuting arguments that they calculated Florida’s recent 14.5 percent rate hike in violation of the Sunshine Law. James Fee, a Miami workers’ compensation attorney fighting the increase, and a group of press and press-freedom organizations, had argued in their own briefs that the National Council on Compensation Insurance, or NCCI, was obliged to open its internal deliberations to public scrutiny, but failed to do…