Mattera Retires as Liberty Mutual's Chief Lobbyist

Friday, June 17, 2016 | 1

Paul Mattera

Liberty Mutual Insurance’s lead lobbyist of three decades who wrote and spoke on workers’ compensation issues is retiring at the end of June, the Boston Globe reported.

Paul Mattera, 65, spoke out on issues affecting the workers’ compensation industry such as policy reform and how a terrorist attack could impact insurers, WorkCompCentral reported.

He contributed a paper called “Arc & Architecture of Reform” to the 27th annual Workers’ Compensation Research Institute conference in Boston in 2010.

The paper was published in a WCRI book called “Workers’ Compensation: Where Have We Come From? Where Are We Going?” that year, WorkCompCentral reported in November 2010.

He told industry professionals gathered at the National Council on Compensation Insurance’s 2013 conference that it was imperative for Congress to extend the Terrorism Risk Insurance Extension Act for a third time, WorkCompCentral reported in May 2013.

The act, which created a federal backstop for claims related to acts of terrorism, had been set to expire in December 2014. A 2015 reauthorization act extended the policy until December 2020.

Outside of workers’ compensation, Mattera lobbied for state and federal deregulation of the insurance industry, the Globe reported.

He pushed for Massachusetts to deregulate its car insurance market, which it did in 2008, and he tried to persuade former U.S. Rep. Barney Frank D-Massachusetts, that insurance companies didn’t need to be regulated as tightly as banks after the financial crisis before the rollout of the Dodd-Frank Act, the Globe reported.

He will be replaced by Ed Kenealy.