Thursday, May 31, 2007

SB07-258 signed today by Colorado Governor


This bill pertains to many different workers comp matters which needed adjusting. For example for many years the most you could "lump sum" was $37500 but this is increased to $60000. Let's say the insurer admits for your permanent impairment that it owes you $70000 (with a serious back injury and decent pay rate this can happen). Under the old law you could take an advance of $37500 and the rest was paid out biweekly till exhausted. Now you can lump sum up to $60000 of the awarded benefits. Another provision spruces up some procedural matters and requires for example that all relevant medical and expert records be exchanged with the other side at least 20 days prior to the hearing date. I saw 10 or more law changes in this just passed bill but most make sense to me. One I do question is that a hearing can be postponed or extended but some may only be for 20 days and I doubt this is workable in my locale but guess we'll see how it goes. The bill has too many details to review here but here is a link to it:
http://www.leg.state.co.us/clics/clics2007a/csl.nsf/fsbillcont3/25F0E8DAEE0A8C3D872572C30052A494?Open&file=258_enr.pdf

No comments: