Huge Price Tag on Workers’ Comp Bill

A workers’ compensation proposal in the state Senate (SB 907) could cost private-sector insured employers as much as $204 million over five years, according to a new study by the National Council on Compensation Insurance (NCCI).
And adding self-insured employers to the mix jumps the five-year price tag to $258 million.
That’s more bad news for Connecticut businesses when they really can’t afford it. Employers this year are already paying 7% more ($67 million for insured and self-insured employers) than last year for workers’ comp costs. SB 907 will cause those premiums to skyrocket even higher.   
A similar bill in California “sparked unprecedented medical cost escalation in the California workers compensation system-upward of two to three times the historical medical inflation rate,” says NCCI.
So California was forced to repeal its law. 
Here’s the breakdown for Connecticut from NCCI:

SB 907 makes it harder for private-sector insured employers to ensure the most effective healthcare treatment for their employees. It imposes very burdensome, and in many cases, virtually impossible timelines on employers to accomplish that.
If passed, SB 907 is likely to cause more medical treatments, more informal hearings, and more litigation (which is not surprising, since it is being promoted by trial attorneys). The proposal is also likely to delay an employee’s return to work, further increasing costs.
At a time when Connecticut employers are already paying much higher workers’ comp costs this year—primarily because of rising medical costs—this proposal makes matters much worse in several ways.
CBIA urges lawmakers to reject SB 907 as just too costly for Connecticut.
For more information, contact CBIA’s Eric Gjede at 860.480.1784 or eric.gjede@cbia.com