Worker's Compensation Insurance

So why

are you hiring terrorists anyway? Good grief, any way to get a buck (or 4 bucks).

Andy

Oh that's nothing.....we pay $26!!!! I'll have to start checking those stone piles for IED's before making the tie!

That's crazy. Now I'm going to have to go look at mine and my blood is already boiling just thinking about it.

"Terrorism Fee"

Think about it for a minute....before Oklahoma City and 9-11 who would have thought that terrorism would be something insurance companies might have to consider as a real high risk possibility? The 9-11 attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon resulted in 5,000 workers’ comp claims in excess of $3.5 billion.

According to some studies, if the 1906 San Francisco earthquake were to happen today, it could cause as many as 78,000 injuries, 5,000 deaths and over $7 billion in workers' compensation losses.

Workers' compensation claims for terrorist attack could cost an insurer anywhere from $300,000 to $1 million per employee, depending on the state. It used to be that high risk jobs like roofers and railroad workers were the highest risk....now, certain workers in terror target locations are also considered risks.

Under current circumstances, would you be able to pay WC claims from a terror attack on your own?

(For Ben's sake, I will note here that the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act of 2002 (TRIA), which deals with this issue, was signed into law by President George W. Bush in November, 2002.)

After all, the 9-11 Victims Compensation Fund wound up awarding $7 billion. In addition, the World Trade Center Captive Insurance Company was created to cover an additional $1 billion.

The whole idea of insurance is to spread the risk.......$4.00 is NOTHING, considering what the consequences could be.

"Terrorism Fee"

I'm no fan of the government getting involved in free markets and certainly don't agree with plenty that Bush II did, and this is no exception. The idea that I should have to pay anything for a terrorist act when it simply will not happen to me is absurd. I mean really, is a terrorist going to come blow something up when I'm staking a flippin' Wal-Mart or running a CAMA line in the middle of nowhere on the Pamlico Sound?

Not hardly.

"Terrorism Fee"

I hear ya. And I do not want to sound critical of a sacred cow, but DHS is one of the biggest increases in public spending in modern times. While I understand the need and the threat of terrorism, there was way too much pork barrel on the most unlikely of possible targets, fraud, waste, and abuse.
I am not advocating stopping all measures to protect our citizenry, but I think it is high time that such things were scrutinized (probalby drifting into P&R territory, sorry).

Well if it's anything like it is here in Oz, many organisations appear to be on any 'any excuse to get your money'.
Councils here suddenly find extra expenses required for developement applications and even amend their bylaws to suit, insurance put on a 'surcharge' for this or that, companies site fuel prices for a surcharge, a frost in Brazil means coffee goes up and so it goes on.
I'm not sure about how you pay for insurance on equipment but I stopped paying a while back because the fire levy was the major part of the premium. I asked what chances of it catching fire and if so would someone turn up in a fire truck when I'm up the side of a mountain on a hot day and my total station self ignites....:-(
My rant over and yes I sympathise for you fella's over yonder.

"Terrorism Fee"

> The idea that I should have to pay anything for a terrorist act when it simply will not happen to me is absurd.

From your lips to God's ears, as they say.

I'm sure that's exactly what the staff at Cantor-Fitzgerald thought on the morning of September 11, 2001.

Along with the janitorial staff in the WTC, the waiters at Windows on the World and the parking lot attendents in the basement (who had ALREADY been through the February 1993 bombing), the pilots and flight crews, and all the passengers on the planes, and many many others.

"Terrorism Fee"

Kind of like the statement that I made on that morning -- "I am glad I am out of Pittsburgh. The only thing I have to worry about up here in the middle of nowhere is if they bomb the Somerset Courthouse". This being after working 3 years in Pittsburgh and being transferred to a job in Somerset, PA the day before where our field office happened to be about 4 miles south of the crash site of Flight 93.