For the last three years the Workmen's Compensation Subcommittee of the House Committee on Labor and Commerce has been making a comprehensive study of the Commonwealth's workmen's compensation system. During a meeting of the Labor and Commerce Committee held on July 14, 1978, Delegate Robert E. Washington of Norfolk, Chairman of the committee, asked the Subcommittee to work with a workmen's compensation task force in an effort to determine the root causes of recent substantial workmen's compensation rate increases within the State. The Subcommittee shortly thereafter began working with the task force in an attempt to identify ways of reducing future rate increases.

The task force, which consisted of representatives of the Virginia Industrial Commission, the State Corporation Commission, the State AFL-CIO, the Virginia Manufacturers Association, the workmen's compensation insurance industry, and other organizations, was divided into the following seven subcommittees:

(1) Data Systems

(2) Medical Costs

(3) Employer Practices and Benefit Utilization

(4) Standards of Service - Including Loss Control

(5) Industrial Commission - Law and Procedures

(6) Bureau of Insurance - Rate Procedures

(7) Self-Insurance Requirements

Each of those subcommittees met several times between September and December, 1978, in an effort to do as much work as possible prior to the end of the year. During a meeting held on December 20, 1978, the Legislative Subcommittee received the year-end reports of the seven task force subcommittees.

Although representatives of most of the task force subcommittees advised the Legislative Subcommittee that their study groups had not had sufficient time to complete their work, each subcommittee did offer various recommendations to the legislative Subcommittee.