With the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines, public accounting firms and other employers are watching and waiting, determining how far they can go in encouraging staff to be vaccinated.
Vaccine availability is still limited, though, and vaccines are still only permitted under an Emergency Use Authorization by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), meaning the FDA has not yet fully approved them, noted attorney Mark Spring, office managing partner at CDF Labor Law LLP in Sacramento, Calif.
But the issue of how to handle the vaccine in workplaces nationwide could get dicey in the months ahead, depending on the unknowns: Will the number of coronavirus patients subside or continue to rise? Will the vaccines be effective in reducing pandemic patient numbers? Will employees who do not get vaccinated pose a threat to others in the workplace?
Employers might also worry about risks associated with workers’ compensation claims in Sacramento. “If you are mandating and someone has complications, it’s very likely that they would be able to demonstrate that they got the vaccine in order to work, and therefore a workers’ comp claim could be considered,” Spring said.
And perhaps the biggest unknown of all is this: Will state and federal lawmakers draft legislation limiting what employers can do regarding the vaccine? Legislative attempts have already been launched in some states, reported Bloomberg Law and other publications. In early February, North Dakota lawmakers introduced several bills attempting to block businesses from mandating employee COVID-19 vaccinations. Those bills were defeated, but the likelihood for legislative changes in any state is a moving target. “This has become a highly political issue,” Spring said.
More Workers’ Compensation Law News
Los Angeles, California Business Owner Arraigned In $1 Million Workers’ Compensation Fraud Scheme, Department of Insurance Reports
Marion Piggee, Jr., 68, of Los Angeles, was arraigned on seven counts of insurance fraud after an investigation by california department of insurance logothe California Department of Insurance revealed he was allegedly underreporting employee payroll by nearly $6 million in order to fraudulently reduce his business’s workers’ compensation insurance premium by over $1 million.
On November 28, 2016, the State Compensation Insurance Fund (SCIF) filed a suspected fraudulent claim with the Department of Insurance alleging potential insurance fraud. SCIF reported that Piggee, as owner of Center for Behavioral Change, an adult residential care facility, allegedly underreported employee payroll in order to reduce the proper rate of insurance premiums owed to SCIF.
A routine audit for the policy period of November 1, 2014, to November 1, 2015, found that Center for Behavioral Change reported one employee and payroll wages of $8,035. However, the audit revealed wages to be $881,593 for the same policy year. It also showed Piggee’s business had obtained workers’ compensation insurance for one facility, but failed to disclose they had also acquired eight other facilities.
Total Workers’ Compensation Claim Costs Mostly Stable in California since 2010, Finds WCRI Study
Sacramento – Total costs per claim with more than seven days of lost time in California have been mostly stable since 2010, according to a study published by the Workers Compensation Research Institute (WCRI). In 2019, the most recent year of the study period, total costs per claim increased moderately.
“The increase in total costs per claim in 2019 was largely driven by a 6 percent increase in indemnity benefits per claim. Over the earlier period from 2015 to 2018, indemnity benefits per claim had remained fairly stable,” said Ramona Tanabe, executive vice president and general counsel of WCRI.
The study, CompScope™ Benchmarks for California, 21st Edition, found that several factors contributed to the growth in indemnity benefits per claim in 2019. The average weekly wage of workers with injuries grew 4 percent, the average duration of temporary disability benefits increased 2 percent, and the average permanent partial disability (PPD)/lump-sum payment per PPD/lump-sum claim increased 8 percent.
The following are among the study’s other findings:
California total costs per all paid claims were higher compared with other study states, at about 30 percent higher than the median study state.
Indemnity benefits per claim for claims with more than seven days of lost time were higher compared with the other study states, which reflects several system features.
Medical payments per claim with more than seven days of lost time have been stable in California since 2015, following decreases of 2–7 percent per year after the implementation of Senate Bill 863.
California benefit delivery expenses per claim were among the highest of the 18 study states, and were stable or decreased after 2015.
Workers’ Compensation written premium falls 13% in Calif.
Written premium in California dropped 13% in 2020 to $2 billion — the lowest in the state since 2012 — driven by continued decreases in average insurer charged rates, the Workers Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau of California reported Thursday.
In its quarterly experience report, ending Dec. 31, 2020, the Oakland, California-based WCIRB reported that the average charged rate for 2020 was 9% below 2019 and 40% below the peak in 2014, when the rate was $2.97 per $100 of payroll.
The state’s preliminary projected accident year combined ratio for 2020, including COVID-19 claims is 102%, seven points higher than 2019 and 23 points higher than the low of 79% in 2016. However, excluding COVID-19 claims, the projected combined ratio for the year is 96%, a small uptick from 2019, according to WCIRB.
Indemnity claim frequency for 2020, excluding coronavirus claims, is nearly 6% below the prior year, likely driven by the downturn in the economy caused by the pandemic, the WCIRB reported. The percent of open indemnity claims closed in 2020 was 34%, down 4% from 2019, likely due to the economic downturn
