The rapid and unpredictable pace of change in the risk landscape presents risk management and insurance with one of its biggest challenges: How can we transfer risk if we cannot reliably quantify it?

Increased attorney involvement in commercial claims is a direct cause of substantial loss ratios, with costs continuing to rise. These growing costs result from high legal involvement rates, social inflation, third-party litigation funding and bad-faith lawsuits filed by attorneys.

It’s been less than a decade since Colorado became the first U.S. state to legalize recreational marijuana. Today, it’s legal to consume in 25 U.S. states and territories, as well as in Washington, D.C. But in most of these regions, recreational cannabis use has been legal for less than five years.

From its inception in 1923, the National Council on Compensation Insurance (NCCI) has provided a wealth of data and information on the workers’ comp space. Now, as NCCI celebrates its 100th year, it looks to note the changes and advancements the workers’ comp system encountered throughout the past century.

Medicare Advantage Plans (MAPs), also known as Medicare Part C, are private insurance plans that provide for a Medicare beneficiary’s Part A and Part B benefits. Beneficiaries can choose to enroll in a MAP rather than traditional Medicare. There also are Medicare drug plans (Part D) that provide for a beneficiary’s prescription drugs.

The courtroom was impassioned, to say the least, and downright angry at what they were hearing. In our post-COVID-19 reality, the claimant in a workers’ compensation case was presenting lengthy testimony by video. The judge sat calmly as the claimant spoke about a seemingly horrific injury.

Workers compensation insurers in Texas reported nearly 100,000 COVID-19 claims and 472 fatalities between March 2020 and April of this year, and more than half of both involved first responders and correctional officers, according to new data made public by the Texas Department of Insurance, Division of Workers’ Compensation.

In recent inspections conducted by the U.S. Department of Labor, unsafe working conditions were once again discovered at Dollar General and Dolgencorp discount stores across multiple states.

Workforce positive marijuana test results after accidents have reached a 25-year high, according to the recently published results of the Quest Diagnostics Drug Testing Index.

Injured workers often feel lost in the complex workers’ compensation benefit delivery systems. Difficult to understand, these systems leave injured workers confused, disbelieved and disrespected, which feeds a sense of hopelessness and abandonment. This can potentially contribute to the development or instigation of chronic pain perceptions and a poor outcome.

Inflation, supply chain issues, increased catastrophic losses from climate change, and higher and higher nuclear verdicts mean that insurance carriers are facing higher loss costs and loss ratios to their premium dollar.

Susan Shemanski leads a team responsible for managing the safety of 70,000 workers across 6,000 U.S. job sites. Fatigue is perhaps the most pressing worker health issues on her mind, and one she emphasized at this year’s RISKWORLD in Atlanta during her session, ‘The Future of Workplace Safety: A Case Study.’

One week before their May 1st presentation at RIMS’ 2023 RISKWORLD event in Atlanta, Ike Jenkins and Marc Vincent updated their slides with the latest figures on U.S. mass shootings. By the time they’d checked into their hotels, the figures were already outdated.

The six states where courts or legislatures have said insurers must reimburse for medical marijuana for injured workers have yet to provide guidance on how to do so, putting payers in the position of not being able to use the federal banking system to cover costs for a federally illegal substance.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the use of drugs or alcohol at work significantly increases the the risk of workplace accidents. With this in mind, sooner or later every major employer will inevitably need to address a workers’ compensation claim involving some kind of intoxication.