AUGUSTA – On Tuesday, the state’s Workers’ Compensation Board eyed the available data on workplace injuries to compare the state to the rest of the nation, deciding what to keep and what to discard before a final review of whether to extend comp benefits.
What it means: If the board deems Maine’s claim frequency rate to be lower than average, injured workers collecting disability could have another $27,000 to $54,000 coming their way.
Roughly 15,000 people here now receive weekly benefits for lost wages, according to the board. Payments currently end at seven years, capped at $523 a week.
An annual review of benefits is required by law. Decisions are due for years 2004 and 2005 on whether to extend payments by a year. The board could decide to extend payments to eight years based on 2004 data and add another year based on 2005 data.
Jeffrey Kadison, an actuary hired to run the numbers, said no comparisons would be perfect.
Some data includes information for 36 states, but leaves out heavy populations like California. Other data includes more states but fewer specifics.
“Somebody wrote the law and doesn’t understand what we have for tools in the tool box,” Kadison said. “I’ve got to choose between one flawed and one more-flawed approach.”
He said he would marry some data to give a clearer picture of the mix of jobs in the state and their associated risks. Maine doesn’t have the casino jobs of Mississippi or motor home manufacturing jobs that nine other states have. Likewise, Maine is the only state with a sardine cannery.
It’s his job to shape the data from other states for the closest comparison: For instance, is logging in Maine more or less dangerous than logging in Washington state, based on disabling injuries?
“We can’t go outside the law to get the outcomes anyone in this room is looking for,” said Anthony Monfiletto, a labor representative to the board. “We all bring a different bias to the table (about) what those legally due benefits are.”
Allan Muir, a lawyer representing Maine Employers’ Mutual Insurance Co., the state-created comp carrier that covers about 60 percent of the market here, said most workers eligible for seven years of benefits don’t collect them all the way to the end. They either go back to work or negotiate a lump-sum settlement. An extension would most likely increase settlement size.
Unadjusted for comparison, the latest statistical bulletin from trade group NCCI found Maine had 1,459 disabling injury claims for every 100,000 workers. That figure did not include self-insured workers in Maine.
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