SENATOR OSTEN WELCOMES 12th STRAIGHT DROP IN WORKERS’ COMP COSTS FOR CT BUSINESSES THANKS TO 2014 LEGISLATION
State Senator Cathy Osten (D-Sprague) today welcomed the news that workers’ compensation costs for Connecticut businesses will drop yet again, for the 12th-straight year in a row, reflecting a business-friendly change in the law that Sen. Osten proposed and led the successful passage of in 2014.
“2014 forever changed the way that Connecticut businesses pay for workers’ compensation insurance, and it did so without affecting the quality of care that their employees receive,” Sen. Osten said today. “This was a unanimous, bipartisan policy change that is still paying benefits to Connecticut businesses more than a decade later. It continues to be an unqualified success story.”
The Connecticut Insurance Department has approved an annual filing effective January 1, 2027, that reduces voluntary market loss workers’ compensation costs by an average of 4.9%, and reduces assigned risk rates by an average of 5.8%.
Voluntary market loss costs reflect the expected cost of paying workers’ compensation claims and related loss adjustment expenses. Insurers use these costs, along with their own approved expenses and other factors, to determine the premiums charged to employers. Assigned risk rates apply to employers who are unable to obtain workers’ compensation coverage in the voluntary market.
Since Democrat-led changes to the workers’ compensation law took effect in 2015, Connecticut businesses have saved hundreds of millions of dollars in wage replacement and medical treatment for employees who are injured, disabled, or killed in the workplace.
2014’s Senate Bill 61, “AN ACT CONCERNING WORKERS’ COMPENSATION AND LIABILITY FOR HOSPITAL AND AMBULATORY SURGICAL CENTER SERVICES,” was praised at its public hearing by business groups and opposed by hospitals. The new law requires hospitals to negotiate with and charge businesses medical fees that are based on a cheaper Medicare-based formula, instead of a hospital’s outrageously expensive published, billable cost for various medical procedures.
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