The bankruptcy proceedings and liquidations of both insurance cai-riers and self-insured employers have created nationwide disruptions and problems in the handling of workers’ compensation cases. In New Jersey, the Department of Banking and Insurance is directly responsible for maintaining the guarantee funds and for reassigning claims in these situations. 

 A BILL To amend the Medicare Secondary Payer Act(42 U.S.C. § 1395y(b), et seq.)

911 COMPENSATION PROGRAM FAILS--Mount Sinai's Dr. Stephen Levin said most of his Ground Zero patients have been denied workers' compensation coverage. He called the system "dysfunctional."

For the last few decades, the most compelling issue in an occupational disease case has been the manner in which the workers’ compensation court shoul...

THE CALIFORNIA CRISIS. Attracting Private Specialty Carriers to California Will Stabilize the Workers' Compensation Crisis . The California workers' compensation system is broken .

CALIFORNIA MELTDOWN CONTINUES--Garamendi Takes On Workers' Comp Reforms--"Lawyers and doctors in all too many cases are abusing the system," he said. California's insurance chief, saying the Legislature's recent overhaul of the state's workers' compensation system was "inadequate," on Wednesday called for additional reforms including further cutbacks to outpatient surgical centers and a crackdown on costly litigation

In our great state of California today there is perhaps no greater peril to jobs and future economic growth than the burden of our broken workers’ compensation system. Soaring costs led Costco Wholesale Corp. to seriously consider moving some of its 29,000 jobs out of California. Before that, premium increases drove Buck Knives to Idaho in search of relief. I recently learned that the Los Angeles Unified School District’s workers’ compensation costs are so high that the premiums could pay for 10,000 new teachers

 Jon Gelman's Presentation Remarks to Lois J.Gregory. This is presented to Lois J. Gregory in recognition and of the many years she has served as Senior Deputy Attorney General of the State of New Jersey representing the Second Injury Fund. Her high level of professionalism, as well as her wisdom, intellect and friendship have been warmly appreciated by the New Jersey Workers’ Compensation bench and bar. 

For 42 years I worked with asbestos on Navy ships and in factories. Now I’m dying of cancer. The asbestos companies knew their product was deadly. It’s there in black and white. That’s why the jury awardedmy family a settlement. ow Congress may pass a law that would bail out these companies by throwing my settlement out the window. I’d have to stand in line and wait for compensation from agiant new federal bureaucracy, which won’t have enough to pay me in the first place.

Female flight attendants are more likely to experience disruptions in circadian rhythm - the body clock—than a comparison group of women who do not frequently fly, and the disruptions are linked with flights across different time zones, a new study by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) suggests.

 CASES--The compensation judge denied)petitioner’s motion for temporary disability and medical benefits regarding a rotator cuff tear in his right shoulder and problems with his left knee. where the compensable injuries he sustained in his work—related accident had to do with his left shoulder, neck and lower back assessing the conflicting medical testimony the compensation judge found that the new problems were not causally related to the work—related, and that conservative treatment, rather than surgery, was recommended for petitioner’s lower-hack problems.

The ILO’s Sectoral Activities Department has organized a Meeting of experts to be held from 8 to 15 October 2003 in Geneva, to consider and review a draft and to adopt a Code of practice on Violence and stress at work in services: A threat to productivity and decent work. In services sectors, downsizing, freezes or cuts in salaries, increasing workloads and performance targets, longer hours, and more subcontracting and temporary work are among the potential stressors that can foster a climate of tension driven by uncertainty, exasperation and vulnerability

The number of people with health insurance rose by 1.5 million between 2001 and 2002, to 242.4 million, and the number of uninsured rose by 2.4 million, to 43.6 million, the U.S. Census Bureau reported today.

HEALTH CARE--Many California Employers Face Health Care Mandate
With the ranks of the uninsured rising rapidly across the country, California — where the problem is especially acute — is on the verge of requiring thousands of employers to provide health benefits for their workers.

 Almost seventy percent of the U.S. work force -- approximately 89 million persons -- work in non-industrial, non-agricultural, indoor work setti...

A total of 5,524 fatal work injuries were recorded in 2002, a decline of 6.6 percent from 2001, according to the Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries, conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor. The count for 2002 was the lowest ever recorded by the fatality census, which has been conducted yearly since 1992. The fatality rate also reached a new low of 4.0 fatal work injuries per 100,000 workers in 2002.  

The September 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York City and the environmental aftermath were unprecedented. Airborne dust from the collapse of the towers blanketed Lower Manhattan and was blown or dispersed into many of the surrounding office buildings, schools, and residences.
This complex mixture of building debris and combustion by-products contained such ingredients as asbestos, lead, glass fibers, and concrete dust. Responding to this crisis required organizations from all levels of government to coordinate their response efforts and to make critical public health and safety decisions quickly, and without all of the data that decision-makers would normally desire.

AIG Is Charged by SEC With Fraud--Regulator Says Big Insurer Helped Client Brightpoint Overstate Its Earnings
Comparing insurance titan American International Group Inc. with the banks that engineered financial structures for failed energy company Enron Corp., securities regulators charged AIG with fraud for allegedly helping a client overstate earnings with a bogus insurance policy.

The nation's property and casualty insurers reported capital gains of $1.1 billion in the first quarter of 2003, representing a $725 million, or 181 percent, increase over the $400 million recorded during the same period last year, according to Weiss Ratings, Inc., the nation's leading independent provider of ratings and analyses of financial services companies, mutual funds, and stocks. Companies within the Berkshire-Hathaway group accounted for 62.8 percent of the industry's total first-quarter capital gains, earning $706.9 million. 

Occupational exposures to respirable crystalline silica occur in a variety of industries and occupations because of its extremely common natural occurrence and the wide uses of materials and products that contain it. At least 1.7 million U.S. workers are potentially exposed to respirable crystalline silica [NIOSH 1991], and many are exposed to concentrations that exceed limits defined by current regulations and standards.