By Pitts H.B. No. 428
75R3182 PB-D
A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
1-1 AN ACT
1-2 relating to certain classification systems used for workers'
1-3 compensation insurance purposes by the Texas Department of
1-4 Insurance.
1-5 BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
1-6 SECTION 1. Article 5.60, Insurance Code, is amended to read
1-7 as follows:
1-8 Art. 5.60. CLASSIFICATION SYSTEM; RATING. (a) For workers'
1-9 compensation insurance, the department [Board] shall determine
1-10 hazards by classes and fix classification relativities applicable
1-11 to the payroll in each of the classes as shall be adequate to the
1-12 risks to which they apply. The relativities:
1-13 (1) shall be designed to encourage safety;
1-14 (2) may be territorially based; and
1-15 (3) may reflect differences in losses between
1-16 employers of high and low wage earners within the same class.
1-17 (b) In determining job classifications for purposes of this
1-18 subchapter, the department shall use the "Basic Manual for Workers
1-19 Compensation and Employers Liability Insurance" published by the
1-20 National Council on Compensation Insurance or a similar publication
1-21 produced by an analogous nationally recognized organization.
1-22 (c) The department [Board] shall adopt a uniform experience
1-23 rating plan. The rating plan shall encourage the prevention of
1-24 accidents and consider the peculiar hazard and experience of
2-1 individual risks, past and prospective, within and outside this
2-2 state, and all other relevant factors.
2-3 (d) [(c)] This subchapter may not be construed to prohibit
2-4 any stock company, mutual company, reciprocal or interinsurance
2-5 exchange, the Texas Workers' Compensation Insurance Fund, or
2-6 Lloyd's association from issuing participating policies; however,
2-7 a dividend to policyholders under Subtitle A, Title 5, Labor Code,
2-8 [the Texas Workers' Compensation Act (Article 8308-1.01 et seq.,
2-9 Vernon's Texas Civil Statutes)] may not take effect until approved
2-10 by the department [Board]. Such a dividend may not be approved
2-11 until adequate reserves have been provided, those reserves to be
2-12 computed on the same basis for all classes of companies operating
2-13 under this subchapter.
2-14 (e) [(d)] The department [Board] shall revise the
2-15 classification system and rating plans [not later than March 1,
2-16 1993, and subsequently shall revise the system and plans] at least
2-17 once every five years.
2-18 SECTION 2. This Act takes effect September 1, 1997.
2-19 SECTION 3. The importance of this legislation and the
2-20 crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
2-21 emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
2-22 constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
2-23 days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended.