ACTION ALERT: Please contact your legislators and urge them to VOTE NO on SHB 2409, a bill that will have a negative impact on workers’-comp programs. The bill is unjustified and overly punitive to companies that either self-insure for workers’ comp or provide workers’-comp insurance via programs like AGC’s Group Retro. Among the problems with the bill:
- It introduces new vague language of “fair conduct relating to all aspects of a claim.” Workers’-comp programs already follow well established regulations, with penalties for breaking them, and inserting ambiguous language like this will mean incurring costs to guard against unknown and ill-defined liabilities.
- While some update in penalties may be in order, this bill more than triples them, from $500 to $1700.
- The bill was NOT vetted nor recommended by the Workers’ Comp Advisory Committee, a group that consists of employers and Labor and charged with vetting changes to the workers’-comp system.
Click here for the easy-to-use system to send an email to your legislators today! Contact AGC’s legislative office at 360-352-5000 if you have questions. Thanks!