The experience modifier, or ex mod, is a factor that is developed by examining the insured’s actual loss history against the expected or average loss experience for the insured’s class of business. The calculation returns an experience modifier that will result in either a credit or debit to the insured’s premium.

Whether a company is eligible for experience rating is determined by a number of factors. To determine eligibility, payroll developed during the experience period is totaled by classification code. These totals are multiplied by the expected loss rate for each classification that applies as of the effective date of the experience modification. The sum of these calculations must equal or exceed the minimum eligibility threshold which may change from time to time.

The Workers’ Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau of California (WCIRB) has released its September 1, 2023 Experience Modification Estimator (Estimator). The Estimator is for insurers, agents and brokers to help policyholders understand how payroll and claims experience will affect the computation of their September 1, 2023 and later experience modification (X-Mod).

To use the WCIRB September 1, 2023 Experience Modification Estimator, free of charge, visit the Learning Center on wcirb.com or click on the following link:

– – September 1, 2023 Experience Modification Estimator

By entering policyholder-specific payroll, classification and claims information into the Excel Spreadsheet Estimator, users can obtain an estimated X-Mod using approved September 1, 2023 California Workers’ Compensation Experience Rating Plan – 1995 values (including expected loss rates, D-Ratios and primary thresholds that vary by employer size).

The Estimator’s spreadsheet format makes it easy for users to view and simply copy and paste data into the application. Users can then view, print or save detailed estimated X-Mod information based on that data.

The September 1, 2023 Estimator was updated with the approved experience rating values after the Insurance Commissioner issued a Decision on the WCIRB’s September 1, 2023 Regulatory Filing.

The Estimator is for informational purposes only, and results are approximations based on the information entered. The Estimator does not produce WCIRB-published X-Mods. For more information and helpful tips on how to use the Estimator, go to the WCIRB Experience Modification Estimators page.

Combating insurance fraud requires understanding the psychological factors that drive consumers to engage in fraudulent activity. The new Coalition Against Insurance Fraud’s study provides important insights into these factors, such as the perceived likelihood of being caught and the perceived severity of the consequences of committing insurance fraud.

The study “Who Me? Who Commits Insurance Fraud and Why” analyzes how American consumers view insurance fraud and insurance crime and delves into the psychology of insurance fraud to understand the motivations and justification for the crime derived from in-depth interviews with those convicted of insurance fraud.

A significant number of Americans aged 45 and younger show a high level of tolerance for insurance fraud – even feeling envious of those who commit it – according to a new survey of insurance consumers by Verisk and the Coalition Against Insurance Fraud.

The study found that 87-96% of older respondents consider insurance fraud a crime, while only 75% of those under age 45 consider it a crime, with the percentage skewing downward by age to only 64% for the youngest group.

Other findings include:

– – More than 36% of all Americans believe it’s acceptable to submit an inflated auto damage claim
– – Over 30% of 25-34-year-olds “definitely would” submit a fraudulent property damage claim
– – 27% of those 18-24 would commit workers’ compensation fraud, compared to less than 10% of those 45 and older
– – Over a quarter of those 18-34 are “motivated” to commit insurance fraud compared to less than 7% of those over 45

Completing the “insurance fraud trifecta” the study also looked more closely at attitudes toward submitting a fraudulent workers compensation injury claim. Drawing from the combined overall responses, 5.71% of persons admitted to have already submitted a non-job injury to their employer to be paid. Based on the Coalition’s study in 2022 on Workers Compensation Fraud this alone could constitute nearly $1.5 billion each year of fraudulent workers compensation claim payments.

Others have not yet had the chance. Persons who say they “definitely would” submit such fake injury claims accounted for 11.36% of responses, even exceeding those who told us they “might” consider making such a claim at 10.50%. Collectively these groups accounted for 27.57% of all respondents, yet again representing a very high acceptance rate for the commission of insurance fraud in our nation across multiple lines of insurance, and even when doing so would involve not only lying to the insurance carrier, but also to your employer.

“This study should sound the alarm for insurers, consumer activists, regulators, and legislators on the state of fraud in America. While it’s marginally reassuring that 84% of Americans in the survey consider insurance fraud a crime, the 16% that do not consider it a crime potentially represent more than 53 million Americans,” said Matthew Smith, executive director of the Coalition Against Insurance Fraud. “There is a need for consumer education on the harm insurance fraud crimes have on our economy and on every American citizen and family.”

Sadly, the change in societal attitude toward insurance fraud has been discovered in other surveys on other topics.

Several years ago, the Pew Memorial Trust released a report finding younger Americans to have “emerged into adulthood with low levels of social trust.” Pew noted, “The future of an ethical society is looking grim and we can expect even more fraud in the future.”

The recent book The Man Who Broke Capitalism cited a study by McKinsey finding 61% of current American CEOs would be willing to violate federal and state laws if necessary to meet quarterly financial reporting expectations of Wall Street investors.

Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith LLP is a large, international law firm with over 1,500 attorneys in 34 offices across the United States, Canada, Europe, and Asia. The firm was founded in 1965 and is headquartered in Los Angeles, California.

In addition to insurance defense, It has a range of legal services such as complex litigation, including class actions, mass torts, and product liability cases. Lewis Brisbois also has a significant practice in representing businesses in a variety of industries, including healthcare, technology, and energy.

Last month John Barber, who was chair of the Lewis Brisbois’ employment practice, said at least 110 lawyers were leaving Lewis Brisbois after signing agreements to join a newly-formed spinoff firm and as many as 140 lawyers could eventually join the new firm, Barber Ranen. Barber will lead the firm along with Jeffrey Ranen, who was a national vice chair of the labor and employment practice at Lewis Brisbois.

Barber Ranen would open three physical offices in Los Angeles, Newport Beach, and San Francisco, Barber said, with other lawyers working remotely in Sacramento, Seattle, Salt Lake City, Boston, Denver, Pittsburgh, Portland, Las Vegas and Phoenix.

The Barber Ranen rationale for leaving was to “build something that’s reflective of our values and our beliefs,” Barber told Above The Law. “We wanted to lead with empathy, collaboration and compassion, to do it our way and not have any baggage,” Ranen told the Los Angeles Business Journal about the formation of Barber Ranen.

But this week Above the Law, and other media sources are reporting “Now, Barber and Ranen are making headlines once again, and this time, the news is quite alarming.”

According to the New York Post, Barber and Ranen are alleged to have engaged in racist, misogynistic, homophobic and antisemitic language about their clients and colleagues while at Lewis Brisbois, according to a review of internal emails released Monday morning.

Lewis Brisbois found the problematic emails after an audit triggered by a formal complaint about Barber and Ranen, according to two sources familiar with the matter. The firm said it is now conducting a thorough review of Barber and Ranen’s correspondence and are interviewing other employees who had interacted with the pair. “We are deeply troubled by their use of prejudiced language and racial and cultural slurs aimed at colleagues, clients, attorneys from other firms, and even Judges,” the firm’s leader said in a statement.

Barber Ranen CEO Tim Graves released a statement Monday confirming that the two men had resigned following the discovery of the emails.  “The remaining Equity Partners express their disappointment and disdain for the language Mr. Barber and Mr. Ranen used. We will form a new firm. We ask for the support of our friends and colleagues while we heal and plan our path forward.”

The first release of these emails was made by Lewis Brisbois to Forward, a non-profit that claims to be “the most widely read Jewish newspaper anywhere.” Forward said that “The firm released a larger tranche of inflammatory correspondence from the attorneys targeting other groups, which was first reported on by the New York Post on Saturday.”

According to Forward, the internal emails go back to 2012. and “reveal the two cultivated a culture of bigotry and disparagement.”

Robert Glassman, a member of the board of directors at Los Angeles’ Stephen S. Wise Temple and a partner at Panish Shea Boyle Ravipudi, said he worked on dozens of cases against Lewis Brisbois and found it appalling that “this kind of hatred still permeates itself in the Los Angeles legal community.”

In a Sept. 13, 2012 email, for example, Ranen wrote to Barber, “I forgot to write that we will not hire Jews” after the latter recommended a person – his or her identity was redacted by the company – for a litigation contract. In another email earlier that year, Ramen told Derek Sachs, a former partner at Lewis Brisbois, “This is the reason why people don’t like Jews,” in response to an invoice submitted to them. In a June 2012 email thread that begins with discussing a new hire, Ranen referred to Barber as a “Jew” for owing him money.

Many of the shocking missives obtained by The Post from the pair’s former firm “were also racist or anti-LGBTQ.”

Critics ripped the two men’s behavior and the firm’s hypocrisy.

“Though they may pretend to have founded their new firm in pursuit of ‘empathy and compassion,’ it is beyond any doubt that they are incapable of doing so,” civil rights activist Al Shaprton told The Post. “I am calling on The State Bar of California to conduct a full review of their character and licenses to practice law. Though these emails alone are beyond sufficient to question Barber and Ranen’s integrity, it is easy to imagine they are just the tip of the iceberg of their intolerance toward communities of color, women and the LGBT community.”

Barber and Ranen did not return multiple messages seeking comment.

The Barber Ranen exodus followed an earlier announcement this January that Atlanta-founded labor and employment law firm Constangy, Brooks, Smith & Prophete added 32 cybersecurity and data privacy lawyers from Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith. The law firm said it will open six new offices with the new team, which includes lawyers spread across 17 cities.

State Farm General Insurance Company®, State Farm’s provider of homeowners insurance in California, just announced it will cease accepting new applications including all business and personal lines property and casualty insurance, effective May 27, 2023. This decision does not impact personal auto insurance. State Farm General Insurance Company made this decision “due to historic increases in construction costs outpacing inflation, rapidly growing catastrophe exposure, and a challenging reinsurance market.”

Before State Farm’s announcement, the company requested a 28% rate hike on homeowners’ insurance. Instead, the state forced the company to cut rates.

While recent headlines have followed State Farm pulling out of the new homeowners insurance market in the state, Allstate says they paused it last year. “We paused new homeowners, condo and commercial insurance policies in California last year so we can continue to protect current customers,” Brittany Nash, spokesperson for the company, told ABC10 in an email. Allstate had previously filed for a 39.6% increase. In a statement to ABC10 a spokesperson for the California Department of Insurance (CDI) said current customers will not lose their insurance.

State Farm was California’s largest property insurer and Allstate was fourth as of 2021.

The late May decision by State Farm follows a similar call by insurance giant GEICO, which closed all sales centers in the state last year.  The Sacramento Bee reported last August that 38 offices are closing and hundreds of GEICO workers are being laid off across the state as a result.

And according to a report by CBS News, from 2020 to 2021, auto insurance losses spiked 25% while premiums increased by only 4.5%, according to the American Property Casualty Insurance Association. The rate and severity of auto accidents are up as well as the costs to cover them.

Progressive stopped advertising in the state. Progressive President and Chief Executive Officer Tricia Griffith said in an earnings call last year that the company was slowing its growth in California.  Insurers “are becoming increasingly less willing to write new business” in California because of the moratorium, Joseph Lacher Jr., Kemper’s president, chief executive officer and chairman said during an earnings call last month.

According to an article in the Los Angeles Times, a series of catastrophic wildfires in recent years has increased calls from insurers to weaken the state’s consumer-friendly policies that have held down rates for decades. The insurance crunch is affecting buyers across the state already, even in areas where the wildfire risk is low. In San Francisco, real estate agents say they have seen deals fall through because would-be buyers couldn’t get insured.

And last March, before the State Farm announcement, the Wall Street Journal reported that “Insurance Companies Are Quietly Fleeing California.” It went on to say that the “recent spate of flood-level storms in Northern California brought attention to the Golden State’s ailing levees. As an “atmospheric river” pummeled the low-lying Sacramento region, a nearly endless parade of trucks carrying rubble raced to shore up an aged system.

“The recent floods and wildfire season have also have saddled insurance companies with as much as $1.5 billion in losses. Insurance markets could weather these blows, but California’s government-controlled insurance system won’t let them. Thus, insurers are pulling out of the state or reducing their underwriting, leaving many homeowners dependent on the bare-bones insurer of last resort: the state-created (though insurer-funded) Fair Access to Insurance Requirements Plan.”

Car insurers are backing away, too, Jerry Theodorou, an R Street Institute insurance expert observed in the Orange County Register, notes, as losses increased 25% in one year, while premiums rose only 4.5%. That statistic offers insight into the problem.

In 1988 California voters approved a ballot measure backed by tort lawyers that turned the insurance commissioner into a rate-setting czar. “Proposition 103 . . . requires the ‘prior approval’ of California’s Department of Insurance before insurance companies can implement property and casualty insurance rates,” the department’s website explains. “The ballot measure also required each insurer to ‘roll back’ its rates 20 percent. Prior to Proposition 103, automobile, property and casualty insurance rates were set by insurance companies without approval by the Insurance Commissioner.”

“In the last six years, we lost 20 years’ worth of underwriting profit, and that was due to the catastrophic wildfires that we’ve faced,” said Janet Ruiz, a spokesperson with the Insurance Information Institute.

However, according to a report by Consumer Watchdog, State Farm’s announcement that it would immediately stop selling homeowners insurance to new customers in California is unlawful under Proposition 103, and appears intended to force Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara to rubber stamp $721 million in new and potentially unjustified premium hikes State Farm wants its policyholders to pay, Consumer Watchdog said this morning.  

Consumer Watchdog warned of damaging consequences for California consumers unless Commissioner Lara orders Illinois-based State Farm – the state’s largest insurance company – to reverse its action and comply with the law, as previous Commissioners have done when insurers break the law.  

However the California Insurance Commissioner does not seem to agree with Consumer Watchdog’s interpretation of Proposition 103. Following State Farms announcement, the Insurance Commissioner published a “Consumer Alert” which announced the State Farm decision, and clearly stated “While the California Department of Insurance cannot legally control a company’s business decision, we can help Californians navigate their options.” The Department of Insurance concluded by saying it “continues to proactively outreach to insurance companies to write more business in California so consumers continue to have available coverage options in the face of continued climate change. These discussions are on-going.”

The plaintiff, Jane Doe, was a student at Daniel Pearl Magnet High School, operated by Los Angeles Unified School District). Daniel Garcia was an employee at the school when plaintiff enrolled in the ninth grade for the 2014-2015 academic year.

Garcia began to give special attention to plaintiff. He acted affectionately toward her at school, rubbing her legs and holding her hand. Garcia also sent plaintiff flirtatious and sexual text messages. In November 2014, Garcia sexually assaulted her.Plaintiff later told her parents about Garcia’s actions. Her parents immediately contacted the police. In May 2016, Garcia was arrested and charged with criminal offenses associated with his misconduct.

Before these events occurred, the District allegedly had learned in February 2014 that Garcia – who at the time worked as an aide at a different District school – was involved in a “boyfriend-girlfriend” relationship with another female student, H.M. The District did not fire Garcia upon learning of this relationship, but instead transferred him to the high school where he would encounter plaintiff. The District also created a false report stating that Garcia and H.M. had met and dated before Garcia’s employment with the District commenced.

Plaintiff’s civil action alleged sexual abuse, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and sexual harassment against Garcia. Against the District, plaintiff alleged various negligence theories and a claim for failing to report suspected child abuse. In addition to economic and non-economic damages, plaintiff seeks punitive and exemplary damages from Garcia and an award of up to treble damages under Code Civ. Proc., §340.1(b)(1) from the District.

The District brought a motion to strike the request for up to treble damages pursuant to Government Code section 818, a provision within the Government Claims Act, which specifies in relevant part that “a public entity is not liable for damages awarded under Section 3294 of the Civil Code or other damages imposed primarily for the sake of example and by way of punishing the defendant.”

The superior court denied the motion, concluding that section 340.1(b)(1)’s treble damages provision was intended to be compensatory, not punitive. The Court of Appeal reversed, and determined that section 818 shields public entities from liability for enhanced damages under section 340.1(b)(1). The California Supreme Court agreed with the Court of Appeal and affirmed in the case of Los Angeles Unified School District v Superior Court – S269608 (June 2023).

Since the Court of Appeal ruling in this case, other Courts of Appeal also have determined that enhanced damages under section 340.1(b)(1) are not recoverable against public entities, such as the appellate court inX.M. v. Superior Court (2021) 68 Cal.App.5th 1014, review granted December 1, 2021, S271478 (X.M.). Even more recently, the court in K.M. v. Grossmont Union High School Dist. (2022) 84 Cal.App.5th 717 also concluded that section 818 precludes the application of section 340.1(b)(1) to public entities.

The Opinion noted that section 818 manifests an appreciation that when additional impositions upon a public entity are “primarily for the sake of example and by way of punishing the defendant,” they also create a liability that will be borne not by the immediate wrongdoers but by taxpayers, and may not effectively achieve the goals of retribution and deterrence. For these reasons, such awards should not be permitted, at least without a clear indication by the Legislature that they may be imposed.

In this case the first task was to identify the kinds of damages awards to which section 818 applies. Plaintiff argued that this provision prohibits only the imposition of damages that are “simply and solely punitive.” However the Supreme Court concluded “that section 818 is not so limited, and instead immunizes public entities from damages awarded under Civil Code section 3294 and from other damages that would function, in essence, as an award of punitive or exemplary damages.”

The Opinion then discussed Code of Civil Procedure Section 340.1 which is, for the most part, a statute of limitations intended to expand the ability of victims of childhood sexual abuse to hold to account individuals and entities responsible for their injuries. Since its original enactment in 1986 the statute has been amended on multiple occasions to extend the filing periods for claims alleging childhood sexual assault and revive otherwise time-barred claims.

A 2019 amendment revised section 340.1(b)(1) to provide that in an action seeking damages suffered due to childhood sexual assault, “a person who is sexually assaulted and proves it was as the result of a cover up may recover up to treble damages against a defendant who is found to have covered up the sexual assault of a minor, unless prohibited by another law.”

The Opinion went on to note that “This court and others have frequently characterized treble damages as exemplary or punitive.” And it went on to say that “In adding the treble damages provision to section 340.1 of the Code of Civil Procedure, the Legislature presumably was aware of our prior decisions so characterizing treble damages and understood that the provision could be perceived similarly.”

And similarly it said “the damages authorized under section 340.1(b)(1) have substantial punitive qualities beyond the simple fact that they may go well beyond actual damages. These objective characteristics confirm that enhanced damages under the statute function, in essence, as punitive or exemplary damages by serving ‘to punish past childhood sexual abuse coverups to deter future ones.’ ”

Thus the Justices then determined that in enacting Government Code section 818 the Legislature intended to shield public entities from damages under Civil Code section 340.1(b)(1).