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The Business Council supports the Executive Budget’s proposal to eliminate the mandatory deposit of the “present value” of permanent partial disability benefits into the state's Aggregate Trust Fund (ATF) found in S.6405/A.9005, Part G, Section 11.
The ATF mandate provision imposed a significant, unnecessary cost on workers compensation policies written by commercial carriers and reduced the options available to the state's business community, by making commercial comp coverage less affordable, and ultimately less available in New York.
Not only has the ATF requirement cost millions of extra dollars over the last nine years – a cost ultimately borne by employers - it has served as a major impediment to classification of cases, undermining any savings that could have been realized through durational caps on claims. This in turn has only furthered upward pressure on costs.
The inclusion of the ATF mandate in the 2007 reforms was a mistake whose time has come to correct. For these reasons, The Business Council supports this proposal, and urges its adoption by the Senate and Assembly.