New Members Named To NY Comp Task Force

A spokesman for the New York Insurance Department said nine additional persons have been named to the Workers' Compensation Reform Task Force.

In addition to Bruce Topman, previously appointed as executive director by Superintendent Eric Dinallo, additional members are:

Arthur J. Wilcox Jr. director Public Employee Division, New York, AFL-CIO; Cathy McKeown, First Niagara, a third party administration firm; John Sciortino, Segar & Sciortino law firm; Ed Bartholomew, state Senate staff; Charlotte Hitchcock, deputy counsel to Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver; Kenneth Pokalsky, Business Council of New York; Steven Scotti, attorney for Conn Edison; Assembly Labor Committee Chair Susan John, D-Rochester; Zachary Weiss, insurance superintendent special counsel; and Hampton Finer, insurance department economist.

The workers' comp reform measure, signed into law by Democratic Gov. Eliot Spitzer in March, calls for many of the law's details to be worked out administratively by Mr. Dinallo with various advisory groups.

In addition to revising disability benefits, the new law calls for the development of a system of objective medical guidelines for determining disability.

The legislation also directs a study addressing whether the Compensation Insurance Rating Board, a nonprofit association of insurance carriers that provides advisory workers' comp rates for the insurance superintendent, should be replaced.

Under the bill, the superintendent is to report to the governor and the legislature by September and explain how the board has performed and whether its work should be performed by some other group or agency.