NFIB/NY Calls for Specific Reforms to Lower Costs
Last week, the New York State
Department of Financial Services approved the New York Compensation Insurance
Rating Board’s filing of 9.3% increase in workers’ compensation loss costs.
Insurers will use this foundation for their rate-setting for all new and
renewal policies effective on October 1, 2016. This increase is a
necessary correction to keep the insurance market stable and reflects the true
high costs of the workers’ compensation system.
With this decision to
significantly increase rates, the Department of Financial Services is
acknowledging the reality that this system is far more expensive than before
the 2007 reforms. The system’s high costs– which include more than
doubling of maximum benefits, indexed to the state’s average weekly wage,
combined with increases in medical costs, growing costs of scheduled loss of
use awards, extensive litigation and excessive fees paid to claimant
attorneys– are causing rapidly growing comp costs for employers.
The only way to ensure lower comp
costs in the future is to continue to push for real reforms that will fix the
system. The National Federation of Independent Business continues to push for necessary reforms
which include:
- Immediate
adoption of updated, evidence-based medical impairment guidelines for Scheduled
Loss of Use awards; - Closing the
Permanent Partial Disability durational cap loophole by making the cap run from
date of injury; - Allowing the use
of panel providers for the first 120 days of medical treatment for injuries; - Reexamining the
methods by which attorney fees are determined to ensure that claimants keep
more of their awards. WCB judges must be made to adhere to the Board’s
own dictate that “the amount of the legal fee will be commensurate with the
services rendered, and having due regard for the financial status of the
claimant.”
These reforms and other
modifications would control the costs of the system for employers of all sizes,
while ensuring that employees who suffer injuries in the workplace still can
receive appropriate, high-quality medical care and more easily accessible
indemnity benefits.
Loss cost rates by classification
will be published in a bulletin and on the NY Compensation Insurance Rating
Board website on
or before August 1, 2016.
