New Congress, TRIA, and Workers’ Compensation
The New Congress, TRIA, and Workers’ Compensation all are very important keeping WC as a viable marketplace.
Over the holidays, many articles were published on the throes of not having TRIA (Terrorism Reinsurance Act). Some articles made it seem like the sky would fall without TRIA.
TRIA was a great backstop for settling the nerves of the Workers Comp insurer community over the last decade+. One has to remember that WC is built for accidents to happen, so to speak.
For instance, a business buys a fire policy that has a very low expectation of any type of occurrence. WC is built more around the fact that accidents do happen more often in the workplace than a boiler explosion.
TRIA was a great bargain for employers. If you look at your WC policies and audits, a very minute % of your total premiums was charged for TRIA. If there had been a terrorist attack of large proportions, this would have been a great way to sustain the WC market temporarily so that the subsequent policies would have priced most employers out of the market.
Unless, I am mistaken, there was never an actual claim again TRIA, so the very small %’s had no associated claims. The proof was in the pudding, so to speak , when Congress did not renew the TRIA provisions.
The WC market fared well even without the TRIA considerations. There has been no market panic and carriers still wrote the same companies in the voluntary market. You may want to follow the link in this paragraph as the authors did a bang-up job on TRIA. (Kudos)
As the article points out, a quick-fix may be in the offing. However, as the article also points out, even without TRIA, the WC market was business as usual.
TRIA may someday be a reminder of the states that thought PIP insurance for autos was the only way to coverage drivers properly.
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