Ohio Appeals Court Decision Could Change BWC
A recent Ohio Appeals Court Decision against the Bureau of Workers Compensation (BWC) may possibly start the progression of the state’s monopolistic Workers Compensation system to a free market system. The court decision is well worth a quick review. (Pages 5 -7 and 101 – 104).
Some of the extremely strong-worded opinions is included at the end of this article (italics). This article is not going to bash the BWC. The appellate judges take care of that in their decision.
There are numerous articles in this blog that pertain to Ohio’s BWC and the problems associated with a monopolistic state fund. An article was posted in this blog on the BWC overcharges. There are many articles in this blog on Ohio’s BWC including ones that followed this lawsuit from the start until now. Feel free to use the search box on the right margin and input Ohio or BWC.
West Virginia decided to successfully move from a monopolistic fund to privatization. Brickstreet Insurance was a conduit for the change. Unless I am mistaken only North Dakota, Ohio, Washington, and Wyoming are the last four monopolistic state funds. North Dakota’s monopolistic fund – Workforce Safety and Insurance– has incurred many problems over the last few years.
Once again, the Ohio Appeals Court decision is well worth your time to read over it. A few highlights are pointed out below.
Reduced to its irreducible essence, this appeal is about a cabal of Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation (“BWC”) bureaucrats and lobbyists for group sponsors who rigged workers’ compensation insurance premium rates so that for employers who participated in the BWC’s group rating plan (“group-rated employers”), it was “heads we win,” and for employers who did not participate in the group rating plan(“nongroup-rated employers”), it was “tails you lose.”
For more than 15 years, the BWC allowed nongroup-rated employers to subsidize excessive, undeserved premium discounts to group-rated employers who were handpicked by group sponsors to participate in the BWC’s group rating plan. The temerity of the group sponsors, untempered by any notions of equity from or of the BWC, exacted a heavy price for nongroup-rated employers — over $859 million.
In this case, the BWC violated one of the most basic principles of workers’ compensation insurance, i.e., that every employer participating in Ohio’s workers’ compensation system be charged a reasonable, accurate, and equitable premium rate that corresponds to the risk the employer presents to the workers’ compensation system.
©J&L Risk Management Inc Copyright Notice
