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Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Jimmy Patronis announced the arrest today of Santos Y. Cardona, owner of YYCS Enterprises, Inc., for workers' compensation fraud. Over the course of a year, Cardona allegedly evaded paying nearly $200,000 in workers’ compensation insurance premiums. The company allegedly conducted more than $1 million in payroll but originally reported $59,000 in payroll on their workers' compensation insurance policy. CFO Jimmy Patronis said, “Workers’ compensation fraud is a serious crime that puts injured workers at risk and drives up insurance rates statewide for honest, hard-working businesses. My office is committed to cracking down on fraud. I applaud the great work of our dedicated insurance fraud detectives. I encourage businesses and individuals to report suspected insurance fraud to my website at FraudFreeFlorida.com.” An investigation by CFO Patronis’ Bureau of Insurance Fraud discovered Cardona allegedly concealed payroll information to avoid paying higher workers’ compensation premiums. Based on financial records from a check cashing store in Fort Myers, it was revealed that Cardona cashed over $1 million in payroll checks. Cardona later reported payroll of only $59,000 which is less than what he originally estimated to avoid paying $199,515 in workers’ compensation insurance premiums. Santos Y. Cardona was booked into Lee County Jail on February 5 on charges of Workers’ Compensation Fraud and Scheme to Defraud. If convicted, Cardona faces up to 25 years in prison. Individuals charged with a crime are presumed innocent until proven guilty.

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. Click here to read more: ​

An investigation conducted by a host of agencies produced four arrests on Thursday. According to a release from the Brevard County Sheriff's Office, the BSCO Economics Crime Unit along with the Board of County Commissioners Planning & Development, the Florida Workers' Compensation Fraud Division and the Florida Department of Business, conducted a two-day investigation targeting unlicensed contractors in Brevard County on Wednesday and Thursday. Read more here:

Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty rejects NCCI's 1.9% rate reduction filing for January 1, 2016 and orders them to refile by November 9 with a 5.1% rate reduction filing. Click here to read more:

Florida employers knew a significant increase in workers’ compensation premiums was coming. That didn’t soften the blow that landed Tuesday, when the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation approved a 14.5 percent average premium hike on new and renewal policies, effective Dec. 1. Read more here:

Little more than a week before businesses were slated to get hit with increased workers’ compensation insurance rates, a Leon County circuit judge blocked the hike Wednesday because of violations of Florida’s Sunshine Law. An organization that files workers’ compensation rate proposals for insurers said it would appeal. Click here to read more:

After a thorough review of the workers’ compensation insurance rate filing submitted by the National Council on Compensation Insurance (NCCI) and careful consideration of hundreds of public comments and testimony received from interested stakeholders, the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation (Office) has issued an Order that gives contingent approval to an overall combined average statewide rate increase of 14.5% versus the requested 19.6%. Approval of the revised rate increase is contingent on NCCI amending the filing to include the recommended changes stipulated within the Order. As ordered by the Office, the revised rate increase would become effective on December 1, 2016 for new and renewal business, with no change in rates for current in-force policies. The amended rate filing must be filed with the Office for review and approval no later than October 4, 2016. Click here to read more:

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. ​ Click here to read more:

The public will suffer irreparable harm unless a state appeal court stays Florida’s 14.5 percent increase in workers’ compensation insurance premiums, attorneys challenging the increase said in court papers this week. ​ The National Council on Compensation Insurance, or NCCI, “cannot possibly demonstrate a likelihood of prevailing on appeal with respect to the trial court’s detailed, well-reasoned 73-page final judgment, which is founded upon fundamental open-government principles of Florida law,” plaintiffs attorney John Shubin argued. Click here to read more:

As debate opened Tuesday over Florida’s 14.5 percent increase in workers’ compensation premiums, trial attorneys on the Florida Senate’s Banking and Insurance Committee targeted the group that proposes insurance rates for carriers in the state. ​ Sens. Greg Steube and Gary Farmer Jr., both attorneys, endeavored to shift the focus from attorney fees — widely blamed for rising workers’ comp rates — and onto the need for carriers to compete rather than charge common rates. Click here to read more:

State regulators and an organization that proposes workers’ compensation coverage rates in Florida defended themselves in pleadings to a state appeals court this week, seeking to overturn a lower court ruling that they had violated open-government laws. ​Attorneys for the National Council on Compensation Insurance, or NCCI, submitted their arguments in a brief filed Wednesday with the 1st District Court of Appeal. The state office of Insurance Regulation is also a party to the suit, filed by Miami workers’ compensation attorney James Fee. Click here to read more:

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. Click here to read more: ​