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Effective January 1, 2017, OSHA has revised its requirements for recording and submitting workplace injury records and illnesses. The OSHA Final Rule on Electronic Tracking of Workplace Injuries and Illnesses revisions require that some recorded information is submitted to OSHA electronically. Continue reading
Business interruption is a top global corporate risk for the fifth year in a row. But worries about Brexit and incoming U.S. President Donald Trump also made the list of companies’ 2017 fears and uncertainties in a new Allianz report.
About 37 percent of respondents rated business interruption as their biggest risk worry, essentially even with 2016, the latest annual Allianz Risk Barometer noted. This year’s report – Allianz’s sixth annual – was based on a survey of 1,237 risk experts from 55 countries. Continue reading
Self-driving cars hold the promise of saving thousands of lives each year on U.S. roads. But does pointing out flaws with the technology effectively put people in danger?
That claim was put forth last week by Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk, who criticized the media for harping on the relatively few crashes involving Tesla’s semi-autonomous driving system called Autopilot, while saying little about the about the 1.2 million people who die worldwide each year in human-driven vehicles. Continue reading
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
The new U.S. policy on self-driving cars received a mixed reaction from highway-safety advocates who acknowledged the life-saving potential though warned of a world of “human guinea pigs.”
The Transportation Department’s new guidelines give carmakers and states “the green light to innovate while keeping safety at the forefront,” said Deborah Hersman, president and chief executive officer of the National Safety Council, an Itasca, Illinois-based nonprofit that seeks to reduce injuries and deaths on the road. 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
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has a message for doctors: The money you’re taking from pharmaceutical companies may be clouding your judgment.
Research sites where Pfizer Inc. had paid doctors at least $25,000 in speaking, consulting or other fees reported sunnier results for its smoking-cessation drug Chantix, the FDA disclosed Monday. At those sites, doctors studying the drug’s possible link to suicide risk and other behavior changes reported fewer side effects than at locations where colleagues accepted lower or no payments. Continue reading
