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McCarty: Florida to OK higher workers comp rates

By Palm Beach Business.com

TALLAHASSEE – Florida Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty has announced that Florida’s Office of Insurance Regulation will approve a 6.1 percent rate increase in workers comp insurance rates for the coming year.

Boca Raton-based National Council on Compensation Insurance filed for the rate increase earlier this month. OIR actually rejected the rate increase based on a technicality but McCarty said the office will approve it once NCCI refiles.

“NCCI has provided sufficient evidence to support a rate increase based on a variety of cost factors experienced in the marketplace,” McCarty said in a statement. “Even with this rate increase, Florida’s rates are still 56 percent below the rates prior to the 2003 reforms, and are competitive with other states nationally.”

Before 2003, Florida annually ranked among the most expensive states in the nation in terms of workers comp costs. The 2003 overhaul succeeded in bringing down premiums seven consecutive years, but that trend reversed in 2010.