Best Report: Premiums Not Keeping Up w/ Inflation

Rating agency A.M. Best, in their annual report on the work comp industry, says that while workers' compensation premiums rose 14.2% on average in 2002, the increases were barely sufficient to keep in line with rising medical and litigation costs. Reflecting continued firming in the business line that started several years ago, the 2002 numbers portend a serious issue for work comp providers as other reports indicate that the hard market is coming to an end, and prices are flattening while medical inflation continues unabated.Best says that the double-digit medical-cost inflation is attributed...