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Insurance companies have plenty to worry about as Legislative Session opens

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The insurance industry already has a good idea how one of it’s top priorities for the 2017 Legislative Session seems likely to go. It found out when the House and Senate unveiled their plans for fixing the workers’ compensation system Friday. But there’s more than that to worry about as session opens Tuesday. The industry is also looking for a fix for assignment of benefits abuse, and waiting to see whether the Legislature will make the state’s personal injury protection mandate for…

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House, Senate release details of their workers’ compensation legislation

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The Senate released its version of a workers’ compensation fix Friday, and the measure would lift limits on attorney fees in some cases and require insurance companies to file their own rates, rather than let a ratings agency do the job for them. The House released a draft, labeled “for discussion at a workshop March 7,” that also would allow higher attorney fees and allow insurers to compete on rates. Although SB 1582 would eliminate the National Council on Compensation Insurance’s role in proposing…

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AIF workers’ comp fix would make employees pay their own attorney fees

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Associated Industries of Florida released its fix for rising workers’ compensation rates Tuesday. The lobby’s proposed legislation would make injured employees responsible for their own attorney fees. The draft bill stipulates that “a claimant is responsible for payment of her or his own attorney fees” for litigation arising from a claim. “A judge of compensation claims may not award attorney fees payable by any carrier or employer,” the draft says. Compensation judges would have power to approve such fee agreements “as consistent…

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House panel homes in on attorney fees for workers’ compensation fix

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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…

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Insurance office, NCCI refute Sunshine Law claims in workers’ comp appeal

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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…

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Press organizations file brief in workers’ compensation rate hike appeal

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The Associated Press, Florida Press Association, and Florida First Amendment Foundation have entered the legal battle over whether the state’s Sunshine Law covered the organization behind the state’s workers’ compensation premium increase. In a friend-of-the-court brief, the three accused the National Council on Compensation Insurance, or NCCI, of employing “an evasive device” to get around its legal obligation to calculate premiums in the sunshine. They pointed to a section of the insurance code requiring organizations like NCCI, which proposes rates…

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NCCI, state insurance office can’t evade Sunshine Law, brief argues

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The group behind a 14.5 percent workers’ compensation premium can’t get around Florida’s Sunshine Law by arguing that a single individual worked on the matter, and not a full-fledged internal committee, an appellate brief argues. The law holds that meetings by such committees at rating organizations like the National Council on Compensation Insurance, or NCCI, must be open to the public — and their internal supporting documents, too, the brief says. Attorneys representing James Fee, a Miami workers’ compensation lawyer challenging…

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