Capstone Insights
A new study from the University of Iowa College of Public Health has found that traffic accidents involving farm vehicles in the Midwest would decrease by more than 50 percent if state policies required more lighting and reflection on those vehicles.
The study by the college’s Great Plains Center for Agricultural Health (GPCAH) compared rates of farm equipment–related crashes in nine Midwestern states in the context of the states’ policies on lighting and marking vehicles. Those states report an average of more than 1,100 farm vehicle-related crashes each year, often causing severe or fatal injuries. Continue reading →
Professional employer organizations (PEOs) began their rise after the adoption of the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982 cleared a path for the creation and expansion of such entities. Between 780 and 980 professional employer organizations operate across all 50 states. According to the National Association of Professional Employer Organizations, approximately three million employees work under a PEO arrangement and the PEOs industry earned, on the top end of the estimate, $156 billion in gross revenues in 2014 (gross revenues are the total payrolls plus the fees charged by the PEO).
PEO contracts are co-employment arrangements whereby the professional employer organization and the client with whom it contracts both retain some right of control over the individual worker or workers collectively. Such relationship is wholly different than a leased employee or the use of a borrowed servant. Leased employees and borrowed servants are under the absolute control of the special employer. Co-employment vests responsibility and control with both parties to the contract. Continue reading →
Now that the yearly task of filing personal taxes has passed, this is an opportunity to discuss another type of filing for businesses that occurs every year – the workers’ compensation and general liability audits. In comparison, insurance audits and filing taxes are similar in that both are mandatory, annually. The workers’ compensation and general liability audits are conducted at the end of each policy period to verify that the premium is correct for the exposure during the policy period. In the event there is a claim, the claim might be denied because the premium exposure for the policy term within the policy period where the claim occurred was underinsured. Continue reading →
Following years of declines, the percentage of employees in the combined U.S. workforce testing positive for drugs has steadily increased over the last three years to a 10-year high. Continue reading →
Many states have enacted legislation that requires claimed defects on homes built to be reported to the builder in an effort to try and reduce the amount of Defect Lawsuits. What is being called the “right to repair” allows a builder to address the homeowner’s claimed defects and then repair the defect rather than being brought to court. The “right to repair” provides an avenue to the homeowner to seek repair on their home without having to open a lawsuit. Continue reading →
Some workers who are at risk for heat exhaustion are landscapers, firefighters, bakery workers, farmers, construction workers, miners, boiler room workers, lifeguards, security guards, or any one exposed to extreme heat, humidity and sun conditions during the work hours. Under OSHA law, employers are responsible for providing work places free of known safety hazards which include protecting workers from extreme heat. Continue reading →
A man who lost a leg at age 15 when he was struck by a vehicle as he sat on a Las Vegas, Nev., bus stop bench is suing for damages, saying that the shelters were built dangerously close to busy roads.
Conan Obenchain alleges in a federal lawsuit that putting a shelter 3 feet from the curb creates a foreseeable danger to the public. Continue reading →
Connecticut Bookmaker Gets Prison Time in Insurance Fraud Scheme
A bookmaker who pleaded guilty to charges he shot a gambler with a stun gun and tried to burn down a Middletown restaurant in an insurance fraud scheme is headed to prison.
The Hartford Courant reports 52-year-old John Barile of East Hartford was sentenced Tuesday to 71 months in federal prison. He pleaded guilty in February to charges of arson, insurance fraud, gambling and extortion. Continue reading →
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