Governor Ned Lamont signed Connecticut Public Act 26-12 on May 12, 2026, granting teachers, healthcare workers, and related employees who miss work after a workplace assault 100% of their average weekly earnings. The standard Connecticut workers’ comp replacement cap sits at roughly 75% of the pre-tax average weekly wage. For self-insured school districts and hospital systems in the state, the new law increases per-claim indemnity on assault cases by approximately one-third.
PA 26-12 is an omnibus labor bill with 75 provisions. The WC wage replacement change is the one that directly alters claim costs. The law also covers medical expenses and lost wages associated with court appearances tied to the assault, creating a secondary indemnity stream that previously fell outside the claim.
Who It Affects
Self-insured municipal school districts and public hospital systems in Connecticut bear this cost directly, with no insurer buffer. The state’s larger urban districts (Hartford, New Haven, Bridgeport) and hospital systems operating under self-insured retention programs face the most concentrated exposure.
Healthcare and education are the two sectors most exposed to workplace assault. Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows that over 70% of private-sector workplace assault claims originate in healthcare and social assistance. NCCI’s April 2026 workplace violence report documented a 62% increase in workplace assault rates per 10,000 full-time equivalents from 2011 to 2022, with education sector claims peaking in 2022 and 2023.
The Reserve Mechanism: A Severity Multiplier on a Growing Frequency Base
The math is straightforward. Moving from 75% to 100% wage replacement yields a 1.33x multiplier on indemnity severity for every qualifying assault claim. That bump applies to both pending and prospective claims.
The real pressure comes from the interaction with frequency. If assault claims are growing at the 5.3% annualized rate NCCI documented nationally, the combined effect of rising frequency and a one-third severity increase compounds faster than either trend alone. A program that carried 20 assault claims per year five years ago may now carry 27, each costing a third more in indemnity.
The court-appearance wage coverage adds another cost layer. When an assaulted employee testifies or attends hearings, those lost wages now fall inside the workers’ comp claim rather than outside it. For claims involving criminal prosecution of the assailant, this extends the indemnity tail beyond medical recovery.
What This Means for Your Next Review
Self-insured programs in Connecticut should act in two places: restate case reserves on open assault claims at the 100% replacement level, and apply a prospective severity adjustment to expected loss ratios for this claim category. If your actuary blends assault claims into the overall WC frequency and severity assumption, the severity shift will be diluted in the aggregate but could be material if assaults represent a meaningful share of your indemnity.
Ask your actuary to isolate assault-related claims and quantify the combined effect of the statutory severity increase and the underlying frequency trend. If your program crosses states, check whether your other jurisdictions are considering similar enhanced-benefit legislation for healthcare and education workers.