Help

BI’s Article search uses Boolean search capabilities. If you are not familiar with these principles, here are some quick tips.

To search specifically for more than one word, put the search term in quotation marks. For example, “workers compensation”. This will limit your search to that combination of words.

To search for a combination of terms, use quotations and the & symbol. For example, “hurricane” & “loss”.

Login Register Subscribe

Florida court upholds 14.5% increase in comp premiums

Reprints
Florida court upholds 14.5% increase in comp premiums

A Florida appeals court upheld a 14.5% increase in workers compensation insurance premiums, despite claims that the increase violated a state law on open meetings, according to ruling filed Tuesday. 

Specifically, a three-judge panel of the First District Court of Appeals in Tallahassee, Florida, ruled that the rate increase issued in October 2016 by the Boca Raton, Florida-based National Council on Compensation Insurance and the Tallahassee-based Florida Office of Insurance Regulation did not violate open-government laws by restricting access to internal meetings and documents behind the increase.

“The trial court erred in declaring (Florida Office of Insurance Regulation’s) final order void and in concluding that NCCI and OIR violated the Sunshine Law,” the panel ruled. “The trial court also erred in determining NCCI violated … Florida statutes, and the Florida Public Records Act, by not providing … access to certain records. Accordingly, we reverse the trial court’s final order, and remand for reinstatement of OIR’s final order issued on October 5, 2016, approving a 14.5% increase in the workers’ compensation insurance rates.” 

In November, a Florida judge ruled that the ratings agency and regulators did not follow open meeting laws when they came up with the controversial rate hike, which was suspended as a result of the early ruling. 

Leon County Circuit Court Judge Karen Gievers wrote in that overturned ruling that the “secret meetings” violated Florida’s Sunshine Act, claiming “undisputed evidence established that none of the meetings at NCCI were open to the public, established that no minutes were kept and established that there was no notice to the public in advance of the meetings.”

 

 

 

 

 

Read Next