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: ​

In a vote of 20 to 9, the Florida House of Representatives passed a bill on Thursday that would alter the state’s workers’ compensation laws. The 34-page bill, which had been impeded on multiple occasions, was reintroduced to the House with several new amendments. Should the bill be signed into law, it will affect a number of different statutes including but not limited to attorney fee schedules, the extension of benefit periods, the program’s enrollment process and medical reimbursement. Click here to read more: ​

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 to be constitutional. We must always keep in mind that workers’ compensation laws are designed to ensure the quick and efficient delivery of medical benefits to injured workers so they can recover from their injuries and return to work. The laws are not designed to grant one side a competitive advantage in the court system. Families that depend on the livelihoods of injured workers are counting on a fair system that will give them an avenue for redress when they are wrongly denied benefits. Click here to read more: ​

Employee dissatisfaction with Florida’s workers’ compensation system emerged as an issue during a House committee hearing Wednesday, amid suggestions they deserve more choice over their treating physicians. Rep. George Moraitis Jr. recalled a meeting with firefighters who complained of their medical treatment under the system. ​“We really need to have a solution that helps the workers,” he said. ​ Click here to read more:

The Naples Daily News brought the heat on this one. Journalist Maria Perez debuted a yearlong harrowing investigation this week that uncovered the commonplace practice of Florida staff leasing companies for high-risk jobs hiring undocumented immigrant workers and axing them without compensation when they became injured. The piece tells the story of Abednego de la Cruz, who sliced his finger to the bone cutting concrete blocks in Tallahassee. He was fired and was refused medical care by his employer, Holiday-based SouthEast Personnel Leasing. “Instead, his employer called the police and had him arrested,” Perez reported. He was undocumented and now faces deportation, fearing he will not be able to raise his daughter whom was born in the U.S. Click to read more: