UPDATES: BRIEFLY NOTED

Workers compensation rate cuts in Ohio will save private employers 15% or $240 million, and some state agencies 9.7% or more than $5 million. The rate cuts will be effective July 1. . . .Washington Gov. Gary Locke vetoed portions of an insurance industry backed bill that sought to limit Insurance Commissioner Deborah Senn's ability to regulate managed care standards such as grievance procedures, utilization review and network adequacy. The April 26 veto of House Bill 2018, sponsored by Rep. Phil Dyer, R-Issaquah, preserves portions of Washington's landmark 1993 health system overhaul prohibiting insurers from rejecting coverage to anyone. . . .Christine LaSala, a senior executive at J&H Marsh & McLennan Inc., is the Assn. of Professional Insurance Women's 1997 Insurance Woman of the Year. Ms. LaSala spent 21 years at Johnson & Higgins, where she was made the broker's first woman director in 1993. . .A California court has approved a settlement agreement between the California Insurance Department and Copenhagen Reinsurance Co. Ltd. and several other reinsurers that participated in a pool covering the now-defunct Mission Insurance Co. Ltd. The agreement calls for the reinsurers to pay a total of just over $43 million to the Mission Insurance Co. Trust.