West Virginia Workers Compensation Conference Continued

There were a few areas discussed that will have a major impact on Workers Compensation in West Virginia:

How NCCI calculated advisory rates for WV. From what I could tell, the Old Fund did not keep records that were directly usable by NCCI. So NCCI took 7 states that were similar to WV (not including coal mines) and used them to come up with the advisory rates. The states were:
a. AL
b. KY
c. MD
d. NC
e. SC
f. TN
g. VA.
It will be six years before NCCI has data they can fully use to calculate advisory rates.

The Supreme Court decision Mandible(?) – where the employee can sue outside of WC under Part B of the insurance policy if the employer intentionally harms the employee. This was a large concern to the carriers as the WV Supreme Court had been very liberal with the “intentional harm” part of the Mandible(?) decision. Part B allows employee to sue the employer/carrier very similar to a regular insurance claims with no limits. The WV DOI people there had differing opinions whether this was excluded from a WC policy or not. If this is not excluded some carriers may not come into the state on 7/1/08.

The PEO’s that may come into the state was of a concern to me. As so many of them are not doing well or have been brought up on charges of corruption, the regulations need to be tightened as much as possible. PEO’s can usually offer discounted rates, but at what final cost if they are allowed to operate as freely as has been the case in many other states?

Overall, the WV Department of Insurance and NCCI did a great job as they are in a very difficult position with West Virginia not ever having an open market for Workers' Comp.

Tuesday, September 11, I will be speaking at the North Carolina Mid State Safety Council lunch meeting. The title of my presentation is The Five ASAP Ways To Cut Your Workers Compensation Claims.

Our main website is www.cutcompcosts.com