Iowa small businesses that have struggled with rising workers compensation costs are expected to get some relief.
Gov. Terry Branstad signed into law House File 518, which reduces workers compensation benefits and adjusts the qualifications for benefits, reports the Des Moines Register.
“Thanks to Governor Branstad’s support, today has been an exceptional day for the small business community,” NFIB/Iowa State Director Matt Everson said in a statement after the bill was signed. “With his signature comes peace of mind that insurance costs will stabilize while still providing employees in need of our worker’s compensation plan the protection they deserve.”
Everson said the bill puts safeguards in place to protect employers from excessively litigious individuals. It also helps Iowa compete with neighboring states by stabilizing insurance costs, he said.
“In the past 10 years, Iowa’s workers’ compensation system has mutated into a system benefiting trial lawyers at the expense of Iowa businesses and Iowa workers,” said Branstad in a statement. “Today, that ends by rebalancing the scales to ensure employees are compensated fairly for being injured on the job, while ensuring that abuses are curtailed. This legislation prevents attorneys from taking fees from injured workers when the employer was voluntarily giving benefits, ends the burden on the employer to demonstrate that intoxicated workers incurred injuries as a result of the intoxication, and ends an individual’s ability to receive workers’ compensation while receiving unemployment insurance.”
The new law is projected to reduce payments by the Workers’ Compensation Fund by $1.8 million annually, the Des Moines Register reported, citing state officials. Provisions of the bill reduce shoulder injury benefit payments by 68 percent, but offer community college training to injured workers in this category to help them return to the workforce, reported the paper. Permanent partial disability injury will change as well, with a 10 percent reduction in benefit payment.
