Healthcare Reform

In recent, days, weeks, and months, a lot has rapidly changed. Lawley is dedicated to keeping you informed with pertinent and trustworthy information.

On May 1st, 2020 the New York Compensation Insurance Rating Board (NYCIRB) announced that employers who are paying employees sidelined by the COVID-19 pandemic will pay a less-expensive rate for Workers’ Compensation insurance.

A new classification has been established for these employees called “Telecommuter Reassigned Employees” and Code 8873. The rate for this new class mirrors the Clerical Office rate.

You can read the entire memo here.

Additionally the New Jersey Compensation Insurance Rating Board (NJCIRB) amended its communication at the end of April.

You can read the entire NJ memo here.

Our in-house insurance professionals have analyzed the NYS memo and wanted to highlight certain items of note:

  • This update only applies to employees that continue to be paid but are either not performing any work (idle) or perform only clerical work exclusively at home or in the office.
  • This provision applies on the date of NY’s stay-at-home order and for up to 30 days after its conclusion.
  • During normal seasonal shutdown of operations only continued wages of key employees such as executive supervisors, superintendents, foreman or engineers are assigned to their regular classifications. However, some insurance company auditors will assign these employees to class code 8873 during the stay-at-home order when there are no jobs in progress.
  • This is effective 5.1.2020 for all new policies – but effective as of 3.16.2020 to all current policies.
  • Separate payroll records must be kept – this is very important and required.
  • All Workers’ Compensation claims directly attributable to COVID-19 are excluded from experience rating
  • If you are in a group captive for your workers comp coverage, someone from our Lawley team will reach out to you to discuss how this change impacts you.

We know that this information can be difficult to understand so we encourage you to reach out to our team at Lawley for any assistance. We are happy to walk you through these updates. From Lawley’s entire team to you and your loved ones, please continue to stay safe and well.