August 2025; Shawn R. Biery's Updated IL WC Rate Charts Are Available!!!; Justice Thomas E. Hoffman RIP and much more

Synopsis: AS WE HEAD TOWARD 2026—IL WC BENEFIT RATES INCREASE SLIGHTLY—SHAWN BIERY’S UPDATED IL WC RATE SHEETS AVAILABLE FOR ACCURATE RATES AND RESERVING!!! 

Editor’s comment: The IWCC has posted new rates, although a new PPD Max rate won’t update until January 2026, and some of the Max portions have gone up but most MINIUMUM WC rates stayed the same.

Our IL WC PPD max doesn’t update until 2026 regardless.

Please also note that the IL State Min Wage is now $15 per hour and the City of Chicago’s minimum wage for employers with 4 or more employees is $16.60 per hour starting July 1, 2025—this is important in IL WC wage differential claims. If you unsure how that works, send a reply to Shawn.

Email Marissa at mpatel@keefe-law.com to Get a Free and Complimentary Email or Hard Copy of Shawn R. Biery’s Updated IL WC Rate-Sheet! You can also send any questions to Shawn at sbiery@keefe-law.com

As we have mentioned in the past, since the 1980’s, the IL WC Act provides a formula which effectively insures no matter how poor the IL economy is doing, WC rates climb.

As we indicate above, rising minimum wages will strip value from Illinois’ expensive wage loss differential claims. We feel reserves and settlements need to reflect the legislative boost to anyone who has any job. If you aren’t sure how this works, send a reply to Shawn.

We caution our readers to pay attention to the fact the IL WC statutory maximum PPD rate is $1,045.92. However, this rate is only going to be valid through June 30, 2025 and the new max PPD will be published in January 2026. When it is published in January 2026, this rate will change retroactively from July 1, 2025 forward. At that time, if you don’t make the change backdated to claims from July 2025, your reserves will be incorrect--if this isn’t clear, send a reply.

The current TTD weekly maximum has risen to $1,974.73. An IL worker has to make over $2,962.10 per week or $154,029.20 per year to hit the new IL WC maximum TTD rate.

For WC Death Benefits: The new IL WC minimum sped past the $750k floor for surviving widows/widowers years ago. That amount is now 25 years of compensation or $740.53 per week x 52 weeks in a year x 25 years or $962,689! The new maximum IL WC death benefit is now over $2.5 million at the max $1,974.73 times 52 weeks times 25 years or a lofty $2,567,149 plus burial benefits of $8K. IL WC death benefits also come with annual COLA increases which we feel can potentially make Illinois in the top ten highest in the U.S. for WC death claims—again if you aren’t sure about this issue, send a reply to Shawn.

The best way to make sense of all of this is to get Shawn Biery’s colorful, updated and easy-to-understand IL WC Rate Sheet. There is no charge. If you want just one or a dozen or more, simply send a reply to Marissa at mpatel@keefe-law.com  AND you can also send any questions to Shawn at sbiery@keefe-law.com They will get a copy routed to you once we get laminated copies back from the printer—hopefully before they raise the rates again!

Please confirm your MAILING ADDRESS to Marissa if you would like laminated copies sent to your home or office!

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Synopsis: IL Appellate Court Justice Thomas E. Hoffman Please Rest in Peace.

Editor’s comment: Justice Hoffman passed from this mortal sphere last month at age 77. The 1st District Appellate Court justice is survived by his wife, retired Judge Margarita Kulys Hoffman, and his four children.

Along with other judicial assignments, Justice Hoffman spent a part of his judicial career on the IL Appellate Court, WC Division. I confirm he had an almost encyclopedic memory for case law and legislation. Noting I am one humble representative of Illinois WC legal business community, I note Justice Hoffman probably participated in a streak of numerous rulings that all ruled for Petitioners and their counsels.

Illinois is a “blue state” and will probably remain so for a generation for reasons I would share if send a reply.

Unlike the situation when I first started doing IL WC defense work, in the last several years, it has become very rare for even a single dissent in support of the position of Illinois business and small government to be filed. In my view, there is no IL WC Appellate Court justice that speaks for the interests of Illinois business and small governments. Having carefully considered numerous rulings from the panel Justice Hoffman was on, the ball has moved to where most events occurring at work are compensable without what some Claimant attorneys feel is the irritating need to describe an “accident.”

Justice Hoffman participated in many of the decisions of the IL WC Division that make it extraordinary difficult to challenge or contest any WC denial before that panel. The Illinois WC defense firms now have to deal with things like the simple act of standing up being an “accident” along with a claim from another worker who fell down without any defined reason on a clean, level and well-lit staircase—despite the lack of any mechanical issues with the staircase, the IL WC Appellate panel ruled that event an “accident.” Under Justice Hoffman and others, IL WC is inexorably moving to become a “positional risk” state. I have repeatedly advised—if everything is an “accident,” you won’t need lawyers or judges/justices, as everything will be compensable.

In the good ole days, the worker had to establish a compensable injury to prove “that a work-related accidental injury aggravated or accelerated the preexisting disease such that the employee's current condition of ill-being can be said to have been causally connected to the work-related injury and not simply the result of a normal degenerative process of the preexisting condition.” At the direction of the IL Appellate Court, WC Division which included Justice Hoffman that common sense work comp requirement may have disappeared in “the People’s Republic of Illinois.” It has been my hope that a new theme comes into our combined Illinois workers’ comp brain trust and we don’t make it impossibly easy to present and prevail on a dubious “non-accident” claim. I am also growing tired of being advised literally every WC claim for a hangnail to a sore toe has morphed into a “body as a whole” situation.

I want all my readers to understand I appeared before Justice Thomas Hoffman on any number of occasions and he was solid, straightforward and sharp. Considering my long career in IL Work Comp, he was without question, one of the top jurists of my lifetime. He will be forever missed by me and others. It is unusual to note Justice Hoffman and I went to the same college and law school. I join with my law partners and the entire IL WC community to wish his family and friends all of our best during this difficult time.

Thomas E. Hoffman in 1976