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Florida Insurance Commissioner David Altmaier has issued a Final Order granting approval to the National Council on Compensation Insurance (NCCI) for a statewide overall rate level decrease of 9.5% and premium level decrease of 9.8%. This applies to both new and renewal workers’ compensation insurance policies effective in Florida as of January 1, 2018. Click here to read more:

An immigration measure heading toward the full Constitutional Revision Commission would require all employers in the state to use a federal electronic system to verify the legal work eligibility of every new hire drew criticism on Friday from agriculture and business groups concerned with filling a worker shortage in their industries. Representatives with the Florida Farm Bureau and the Florida Homeowners Associations said the verification system, called E-Verify, would make it more difficult to find workers to work in the fields and in the home building industry. Click to read more:

A state board on Tuesday approved updated reimbursement rates for medical providers, hospitals, and ambulatory care centers that would add $144 million to Florida’s workers’ compensation costs. The Three-Member Panel, which oversees medical reimbursement under the workers’ comp system, unanimously approved the new rates during a public hearing in Tallahassee. The rates need approval by the Legislature — not a certainty by any means, given that the lawmakers last acted on the panel’s recommendations in 2014. Those rates took effect in 2015. Click to read more:

The vast majority of workers at a Naples, Florida, produce packing plant are accused in a scheme to commit workers compensation fraud, the Florida Department of Financial Services said Tuesday. Some 146 employees, many of them immigrant workers, at Fruit Dynamics L.L.C. have been charged with workers comp fraud as a result of an identity theft investigation that began in mid-2013, Maj. Geoffrey Branch of the state agency told Business Insurance in an email. Click here to read more:

A Miami-Dade judge struck a blow Wednesday against Florida’s workers’ comp law, which was already under attack on several fronts. A Miami judge declared Florida’s long-controversial workers’ compensation law unconstitutional saying successive state legislatures had so diminished medical care and wage-loss benefits for injured workers the statute now violates employees’ “fundamental” rights. Click here to read more:

Workers compensation exclusive remedy provisions, under attack in Florida and Oklahoma, face challenges in more states where workers comp reforms have reduced benefits. Often referred to as the “grand bargain,” exclusive remedy in most states means workers injured on the job can receive benefits only through the workers comp system. A liability lawsuit may be allowed in the case of gross employer negligence. Click here to read more:

Independent government and private-sector research and upcoming oral arguments in a highly anticipated case are raising questions about the equity of the U.S. workers compensation system and the long-term viability of exclusive remedy provisions. On Wednesday, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration released a report examining the toll workplace injuries and illnesses exact on society. The report concludes that accumulated changes in the states' workers comp programs have shifted the costs of treating injured workers away from employers, which now provide about 20% of the financial cost of treating workplace injuries and illnesses through workers comp. Click here to read more:

Determining whether an employee's illness is being caused by something in the workplace, making them eligible for workers compensation benefits, is a complicated and often inconclusive process. Employers hire Rene Salazar to investigate whether an employee's condition is related to their workplace when they have pending comp claims or lawsuits, the Tampa-based University of South Florida professor and microbiologist said Monday at the Workers' Compensation Institute conference in Orlando, Florida. Click here to read more:

How the workers comp system balances the rights of injured workers and employers will be a central theme during oral arguments inThe State of Florida vs. Florida Workers' Advocates et al. The state is appealing Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Jorge Cueto's decision last August in which he declared the state's workers comp system unconstitutional because changes to it mean it does not provide “an adequate exclusive replacement remedy” in place of common-law torts. Original article no longer available

Two Miami brothers have been charged in a workers compensation scam. Jorge Hernandez-Gonzalez, 25, set up a shell business Hernago and Associates Inc. and then purchased a minimal worker’s compensation policy for it, according to Broward Sheriff’s investigators. Click here to read more:

Nine people were charged for advertising services without having workers compensation coverage, according to the Florida Department of Financial Services Division of Insurance Fraud. The arrests followed a three-day undercover sting ending Friday in Manatee County involving the Manatee County Sheriff's Office, Bradenton Police Department, Palmetto Police Department, Longboat Key Police Department, and several others. Click here to read more:

Florida’s Office of Insurance Regulation has ordered a 5.1% workers compensation rate cut, disapproving the National Council on Compensation Insurance Inc.’s proposed 1.9% overall rate level decrease. Florida Insurance Commissioner Kevin M. McCarty ordered Boca Raton, Florida-based NCCI to submit a new rate filing that contains a 5.1% reduction in rates no later than Nov. 9 to meet statutory timeframes for a Jan. 1 effective date, according to a Tuesday statement by the Office of Insurance Regulation. In the statement, Commissioner McCarty said the use of a 4% profit and contingencies provision in the filing is “excessive” and “does not adequately reflect investment income or unearned premium and loss reserves.” Click here to read more: