Workers Compensation Rates Continue to Decline, Saving Connecticut Businesses Money

By Garnet McLaughlin

December 5 @ 10:45 am

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Credit: AndreyPopov / Canva

Connecticut businesses will see another decrease in their workers compensation rates for 2025. This reduction, announced by Gov. Ned Lamont’s administration in November, follows an 11-year trend of declining rates.

The state Insurance Department approved a worker’s compensation rate filing for next year that includes a decrease of 6.1% to the voluntary market loss costs and a reduction of 6.2% in assigned risk plan rates. Connecticut has seen a continued decrease in claims surrounding workplace injuries, which lends to steadily decreasing rates, the agency said.

Sen. Jorge Cabrera, a Hamden Democrat who co-chairs the legislature’s Insurance and Real Estate Committee, lauded the reduction in workers compensation rate as great news for Connecticut’s business community.

“Employers can continue to ensure their workplaces are safe and their employees are healthy at reasonable rates that protect their bottom line,” Cabrera said. “With the 2025 Legislative Session ahead, I am eager to continue to build upon our work to support business here in Connecticut.”

The new rates will result in cost savings for Connecticut employers, continuing to make Connecticut a more business-friendly environment across all sectors, industries, and business sizes.

In a press release, state Insurance Commissioner Andrew N. Mais said the ongoing decline of workers compensation rates coupled with a drop in workplace injuries had saved Connecticut employers more than $400 million in reduced premiums.

“Workers’ compensation insurance is critical so workers can know they are protected as they work to support their families, and for business owners to help care for the health, well-being, and safety of their employees,” Mais said.

This news comes on top of a November announcement that Connecticut employers will not see an unemployment tax increase in 2025, thanks to the state’s decision to repay all 2024 borrowing under the Unemployment Trust Fund. Stabilizing the fund has saved employers millions of dollars in taxes and special assessments in the last few years.

Read the Department’s official approval and filing here.

Student Loan Reimbursement to Begin Next Month

By Michelle Rappaport

December 4 @ 9:00 am

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Residents who graduated from a Connecticut college or university may be eligible for tuition loan reimbursement under a $6 million program aimed at providing financial relief to those burdened with student loan debt.

Beginning Jan. 1, the Office of Higher Education will begin accepting applications for the Student Loan Reimbursement Program, a new initiative providing up to $20,000 over four years in loan reimbursement.

According to the Connecticut Mirror, Dwayne Smith, interim president of Southern Connecticut State University, said borrowers collectively owed $1.6 trillion as of September 2023.

“As a proud first-generation college graduate, I deeply understand the resilience it takes to pursue higher education while managing significant financial challenges,” Smith said, according to the Mirror. “These scholars carry not only their own dreams, but also the hopes of their families and their communities.”

To be eligible for the program, applicants must be current Connecticut residents with outstanding loan balances, who have lived in the state for at least five years. Applicants must have paid toward a federal direct loan, a federal direct PLUS loan, federal Perkins loan, CHESLA loan or other state-sponsored student loan during 2024.

A person applying must have a Connecticut adjusted gross income in 2023 of not more than $125,000 for single applicants, or $175,000 for married applicants.

In order to qualify for the program, applicants must have completed at least 50 hours of volunteer work for a nonprofit organization this year and be able to provide notarized documentation of their volunteer efforts.

More information on how to apply for the program can be found on the Office of Higher Education’s website.

Success Story: Connecticut’s Crumbling Foundations Fund

By Lawrence Cook

December 3 @ 9:00 am

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Democratic senators from across the state praised a new report, which last week showed that Connecticut had spent more than $155 million to renovate 1,018 homes affected by crumbling foundations over the last several years.

To date, 2,368 claimants have been identified in 56 different Connecticut towns (about a third of the state), with an estimated total repair cost of $233.5 million. Most of the affected homes are located in Vernon, Tolland, Manchester, South Windsor, Stafford, Ellington, Willington, Coventry, Enfield and Somers.

The state has also spent $1 million to assess and repair 18 homes in Columbia, Hebron, with four pending claims in Marlborough, Lebanon and Norwich.

Revenue for crumbling foundation repairs comes from a combination of $150 million in state bonding and $55.2 million in fees collected from a $12 annual surcharge on Connecticut homeowner insurance policies and deposited into the “Healthy Homes Fund” to pay for needed repairs. The funds are overseen and distributed by the Connecticut Foundation Solutions Indemnity Company Inc.

In response to the latest report on the assistance program, Sen. Saud Anwar, D-South Windsor, said that state leaders and the company had helped to alleviate some difficult conditions for thousands of homeowners across the region.

“Seeing these results — and knowing that the hard work of countless people has benefitted and aided community members in dire times — is reassuring,” Anwar said. “There’s still plenty of work left to do, but these results are heartening.”

Sen. MD Rahman, a Manchester Democrat whose district has also been impacted by crumbling foundations, agreed and pledged to continue his support for homeowners in need of assistance.

“Crumbling foundations have been a scourge upon many Connecticut households, but the gradual progress seen in the last several years has been reassuring,” Rahman said.

That process was made possible by state legislators who recognized the untenable position many homeowners found themselves in when their investments began crumbling and private insurance companies refused to pay for repairs, Sen. Cathy Osten, D-Sprague, said.

“It was an impossible situation,” Osten said. “Thankfully, on a fairly bipartisan basis, the General Assembly took action to save people’s homes and do what the private sector refused to do. The results have been amazing, and we’ve got another 1,000 homes or so still to repair.”

It’s been nearly a decade since Connecticut’s crumbling foundations crisis was uncovered, with more than 35,000 total homes potentially impacted by failing concrete foundations statewide.

Reports of crumbling foundations first began in 2015. By May 2017, the Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection had received reports of more than 550 homes with faulty foundations, and in December 2017 began processing 522 verified reports to determine compensation eligibility.

The compromised concrete originated from the JJ Mottes Concrete Company in Stafford Springs, from 1983 to 2015; in many cases, the foundations contained an iron sulfide substance called pyrrhotite that causes slow degradation of concrete when exposed to oxygen and water. That slow degradation contributed to the impacts of the crisis, as its weakening effects can go unnoticed for up to 30 years.

The current safe and effective method to fix a home that has tested positive for pyrrhotite is to lift the house off the existing foundation and completely replace all the concrete. According to the Connecticut Department of Housing, this process can cost anywhere from $100,000 to $250,000, often more than the total value of many affected homes.

Public Invited to the State Capitol Tuesday to Pay Tribute to Former Governor Rell

By Lawrence Cook

December 2 @ 11:15 am

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Members of the public can pay tribute to former Gov. M. Jodi Rell, who will lay in state at the Capitol in Hartford Tuesday, nearly a week after news of her death was met with statements of mourning from residents and officials across Connecticut.

Rell, who was 78, died in a Florida hospital on Nov. 20 following a brief illness. She will lay in state at the Connecticut State Capitol from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., when the public is invited to pay tribute. That will be followed by a 2:30 p.m. mass of Christian burial at the Cathedral of Saint Joseph, 140 Farmington Avenue in Hartford.

Following news of her death, Rell was remembered as a moderate and bipartisan Republican governor who worked with Democrats to pass various public policy issues and who helped Connecticut recover from the scandal of her predecessor, Republican Gov. John G. Rowland, who resigned from office in July 2004 as he faced an impeachment inquiry and a federal corruption investigation into his personal relationships with people doing business with the state.

In a statement last week, Senate President Pro Tempore Martin M. Looney and Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff recalled Rell as a “gracious, compassionate, and intelligent leader,” who guided Connecticut and reassured its citizens in the aftermath of Rowland’s corruption scandal.

“We always found her to be thoughtful, bipartisan, hardworking, and dedicated to improving the lives of Connecticut citizens,” Looney and Duff said. “We extend our sympathies to her family and friends and encourage them to take comfort in the shining legacy that she has left the people of Connecticut.”

Sen. Joan Hartley, a veteran Democrat from Waterbury, remembered serving with Rell when both were elected to the state House.

“Governor Rell, only the second woman to serve as governor, leaves behind a legacy of restoring public trust in government, a long list of accomplishments achieved through bipartisanship and pragmatism, and her unwavering dedication to the people of Connecticut,” Hartley said.

Several other Democratic legislators issued statements describing the former governor as a steady hand in a moment of turbulence and uncertainty in Connecticut history.

Sen. Matt Lesser, D-Middletown, pointed to many of the policies which Rell supported during her tenure as a public servant, including Connecticut’s successful public campaign financing system, a public health insurance option, and reforms of the Medicaid program.

“Governor Rell was charming, moderate and pragmatic – a Republican who raised taxes on the wealthy,” Lesser said. “She had personal integrity, and also knew how to say no to the loudest and angriest voices in her party in order to represent the needs of Connecticut.”

A private interment ceremony will occur at the Connecticut State Veterans Cemetery in Middletown on a date yet to be determined. Governor Rell will be buried alongside her husband Lou Rell, a veteran of the U.S. Navy, who died in March 2014.