The Peru Gazette

The state Department of Financial Services has approved an average 9.3 percent increase in workers’ compensation insurance rates starting in October, highlighting an issue that the state’s business community has long hurt New York’s competitiveness but which employee advocates say is still plagued with problems for the injured. Among the reasons for the approval by DFS Superintendent Maria Vullo: testimony by insurance carriers that they might leave the state if they couldn’t raise prices to cover claims, and testimony by the state Business Council saying that the hikes, while unwelcome, were needed given the rising costs associated with worker’s injuries and the compensation system. The proposed 9.3 percent increase in loss-cost is obviously not the outcome that The Business Council had hoped for, but these numbers unfortunately reflect the true costs of New York’s deeply troubled workers’ compensation system; now significantly more expensive than before the 2007 reforms,” Business Council Government Affairs Director Lev Ginsburg said in a recent email about the increase. […] Robert Grey, a Long Island-based workers’ compensation lawyer who heads an organization that advocates for injured employees, said he believed insurance companies didn’t make a strong enough case to warrant the increase. […] he fears that reforms being pushed by business and insurance interest could simply be a way to cut workers compensation benefits to injured employees.

Source: Workers Compensation rates are rising – Times Union