Michelle Kerr

Topics: National Comp | Workers' Comp | Workers' Comp Forum If you think it feels harder to run a workers’ compensation program than it did five years ago, you’re not alone. It’s not your imagination – your peers are feeling it too. And the data bears it out. Claim frequency nationally has stayed flat or continued to decline, according to the National Council on Compensation Insurance’s latest analysis — the kind of number that, on its own, would suggest a system getting easier to manage.

Topics: Mar./Apr. 2026 Issue | Return to Work | Workers' Comp | Workers' Comp Forum Let’s talk about Marie. Marie is rock solid — 15 years without a single injury. But then something changed. Marie had three recordable injuries in eight months. The injuries weren’t serious, but the pattern certainly was. In post-incident interviews she’d shrug and say she just slipped or bumped into something. Drug tests? Negative. “There was just nothing we could see that had changed about her,” they said.

Topics: Jan./Feb. 2026 Issue | Legal/Regulatory | Mental & Behavioral Health | Workers' Comp | Workers' Comp Forum If you blinked, you might have missed the expansion of New York’s workers’ comp coverage for mental health claims. Signed into law in December 2024, it was repealed barely a year later.