From Bob's Cluttered Desk

Next week we will be officially announcing our third Hot Seat Webinar, to be conducted March 29, 2018 at 2:00 Eastern. It will discuss the very important topic of sexual harassment, with a look at its impact in workers’ comp; both as employers and service providers. We have assembled a terrific panel for this, and…

In 2017, 612,677 bridges in the United States received an annual inspection. 54,259 of them were found to be “structurally deficient”. The average age of a structurally deficient bridge in this country is 67 years. Across all bridges, 4 out of 10 are more than 50 years old. Clearly, some of these critical elements of…

Montana is a big state. They have big, wide open areas. They have big ranches. They have “big” speed limits. They have, as their tagline implies, big sky. And they also have big stupid ideas – or at least one big stupid idea. That stupid idea is centered around cash to which the state government…

Legislators, Regulators, Judges and Fellow Citizens of the Workers’ Compensation World, As we gather tonight to look back on the past year within the workers’ compensation industry, we reflect on occurrences both good and bad; realities both positive and negative, and opportunities realized as well as missed. The year was, as has ostensibly become our…

While I still use a Windows PC in my office, I am decidedly an Apple guy both at home and on the road. My experience with my first iPhone led me to my first iPad, which eventually led me to a MacBook Pro, which eventually became a Macbook Air. I’ve had multiple iPhones as they…

There is little doubt Alabama has had a very rough year. First, their entire workers’ compensation system was found to be unconstitutional. Then it wasn’t. That was followed by a raucous and controversial Senate campaign that drew the attention of an entire nation; a race that to this day has not drawn a concession from…

If there was a common theme to the responses in our recent survey on Minimum State Standards for Workers’ Compensation, it was that the majority of respondents would like to see them; but not from the federal level. For this unscientific survey, which closed last week, we asked five basic questions of our audience: Do…

I would be the last person to describe one of my presentations as “art”, but, always one to be looking for a catchy title, I thought “Why Injured Workers Hire Attorneys and Life Imitating My Presentation” was a less than stellar opening. But, that is sort of what happened to me last week. This past…

I had just finished my weight routine at the gym Saturday morning when I sat down in the lobby area to wait for my wife, who was finishing up in a fitness class. I had my earphones on, listening to music, and pulled out my phone to busy myself by checking email and then moving…

It is once again that time of year, where I dust off my crystal ball and gaze into the not so distant future to determine and predict what lies ahead for the workers’ compensation industry. My (less than annually produced) predictions for the coming year have become legendary (mostly in my own mind) if for…