Bill Mudge has been put in a unique position during the pandemic.
He’s got a sizeable workforce he’s had to reconfigure and manage much differently, and he heads the bureau that regulators, employers and insurers in the largest state in the nation look to for crucial workers’ compensation information and guidance – information and guidance that is, if you’ll excuse the pun, at a premium these days.
Mudge is president and CEO of the Workers’ Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau of California.
After COVID-19 shut things down in California and the rest of the world, workplaces were radically transformed in ways that may take a long time to be undone.
Soon after the shutdown, things got much more hectic at the WCIRB.
The bureau was asked by the California Assembly to conduct an evaluation of a potential conclusive COVID-19 presumption in California workers’ comp. Specifically, the WCIRB was requested to provide the cost impact of a conclusive COVID-19 presumption for healthcare workers, firefighters, EMS and rescue employees, front line law enforcement officers and other essential critical infrastructure employees.
The impact of a conclusive presumption that…