North Bay Business Journal

While California’s insurance industry awaits the results of recently enacted reforms in the workers compensation world, employer premiums will likely still face upward pressure for most of 2013 as implementation takes shape, insurance experts said.

Gov. Jerry Brown recently signed a bill that aims to control increasingly higher costs on workers’ compensation premiums, but that won’t stop a roughly 15 to 30 percent rate hike for employers in the immediate future, according to insurance brokers in the North Bay.

Business Insurance column: Obesity is increasingly contributing to the higher costs in workers’ compensation rates, according to a new study that found indemnity benefit duration of obese claimants is more than five times longer than that claimants who weren’t. …

Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones lowered rates for medical malpractice insurance offered by Napa-based The Doctors Company, a Napa-based interinsurance exchange. …

Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones announced that the California Senate passed SB 1431, which would set guidelines for stop-loss carriers when selling policies to small employers with 2 to 50 employees. …

Workers’ compensation insurance rates are continuing to climb upward, as the cost of health care and increasing medical utilization drives up premiums for employers throughout the state, according to brokers in the North Bay.

Workers’ compensation insurance rates are continuing to climb sharply in the North Bay this year.

Share your thoughts on the causes and impact of the rate increases. Take this week’s NBBJ Pulse Poll: How much are your workers’ compensation insurance rates set to rise this year?

NORTH BAY — Employers will likely face an increase in their workers compensation premiums in the coming year, as the cost of medical utilization and permanent disability continues to rise, according to brokers.

SANTA ROSA — Mullen & Filippi, a law firm that specializes in workers’ compensation litigation and related legal services, is relocating its practice to about 6,000 square feet in downtown Santa Rosa from the Fountaingrove Executive Center.

Questions for Bill Merget and Victor McKnight, Principals, EPIC Insurance: What do you see as the trends in business insurance for 2012? What trends do you see in employee benefits for 2012, in cost and in design? What issues are clients asking about most often and what are you telling them?

NORTH BAY — The Workers’ Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau, the body that oversees and makes recommendations for the workers comp sector, has officially recommended a 1.8 percent decrease in pure premium rates beginning in 2012.

NORTH BAY – A group of hardware and home-improvement stores in the North Bay, seeking stability in workers’ comp rates, have turned to a growing statewide self-insured model.

This year many California employers are paying a higher rate per $100 of payroll for workers’ comp insurance for the first time since 2003. Analysis from the Workers’ Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau (WCIRB) indicates that the average rate paid during the first quarter of 2010 was up 5 percent from a year ago.

NORTH BAY — Workers’ compensation rate increases by California insurance carriers have remained far below the 22.8 percent increase recommended by the Workers Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau for new and renewed policies.

CALIFORNIA – Workers’ comp carriers charged less than they paid in claims last year and should increase rates by 22.8 percent, according to the most recent report by state actuaries. This “magic loss number,” not breached since before the 2004 reforms, is just one of many signals that carriers should have long ago increased the price of policies, but their slow reaction is typical of California insurers, according to local brokers.

SANTA ROSA – Established in Sonoma County more than 60 years ago, Santa Rosa Orthopedics has launched the region’s first “Hand Center” aimed at integrating rehab and surgery procedures.

CALIFORNA – The halcyon days of diving California workers’ compensation insurance rates have finally subsided with the first of what appears to be across-the-board premium increases. Rates have exhibited signs of a potential change for months, and last week one of the state’s largest carriers filed for a 15 percent change. Prices in other insurance [...]

Most of us are now aware the Workers’ Comp Insurance Rating Bureau recommended a 24 percent rate increase effective July 1. So what are they thinking? Don’t they know that California has been called the epicenter of the national recession and that our state has the highest jobless rate in a generation? What is this, a death blow?

CALIFORNIA – The four-year decline in workers’ compensation insurance rates, which dropped another 18 percent last year, is showing early signs of a halt in 2009, according to North Bay brokers who warn that a dramatic swing could come fast and without warning.

CALIFORNIA – A workers’ compensation self-insurance pool of vintners has become the latest victim of the credit crisis.