Montana Self Insurers' Association
November 2026 Update
- The Election – What Does It Mean for the Legislative Session?
- MSIA Priorities for Next Session
- Ethics Webinar 12/9 @ 10a MST; Sponsored by Mary Jane Barrett & Laird, Cowley PLLC
- MSIA Annual Meeting Results
- As Part of UWC, MSIA Meetings with OWCP and CMS
- Welcome New MSIA Member – Shirley Ryan AbilityLab
The Election – What Does It Mean for the Legislative Session?
Plus ca change, Plus c’est la même chose (The more things change, the more things stay the same) - (Alphones Karr, Les Geuepse, January 1849)
The Blue Wave hit Montana with the upset victory of Sam Forstag (D) over Aaron Flint (R) for the open Western Congressional seat. Eastern Congressional seat incumbent Troy Downing (R) and Kurt Alme in the open Senate seat race had little trouble in defeating their opponents. As well, in the Statehouse Democrats picked up two Senate seats and one House seat. The Governor’s office will be open in 2028 as Governor Gianforte is term limited. The next speculation topic will be who will run for Governor?
For the Legislative session starting in January, the Republicans maintain a majority in both chambers. We have learned that our Montana Republican majority doesn’t mean what it has traditionally meant. Last session, ‘The Nine’ lead by former Senate President Jason Ellsworth (R-Hamilton) split from leadership and worked with the Democrats to take over the agenda. The Nine could be seen as an extension of the ‘Solutions Caucus’ a few years ago. One could argue The Nine didn’t go crazy, but at the same time, leadership priorities clearly did not carry the day. And rather than a willingness to work with Solutions Caucus members, The Nine were literally shunned by leadership and members of the Majority caucus. The feeling in the halls of the Capital building was one of mean-ness.
Bills that you would never expect to see significant action with a Republican majority, were voted out of Committee and beyond. In workers’ compensation, bills like the WC PTSD coverage for first responders passed (the Governors’ veto message included the MSIA message), benefit increases and choice of provider got through committee. While some members of The Nine are gone, some remain in the Senate, and one has moved to the House. The internal Republican issues that resulted in the creation of The Nine, remain. Kyle Schmauch, Chief of Staff and Communications Director for the Republican Senate Majority told the Montana Free Press, “The overall makeup of the Legislature…is functionally unchanged from what it was before the election.” Seeing the internal strife within the Republican party, I think Mr. Schmauch is right - we will likely see moderate Republicans work with the Democratic minority to get attention to their agenda.
The 2026 Montana legislative election will result in a continued Republican controlled legislature in both the House and the Senate, although Democrats will have more seats than they have had in the recent past. Absent a few districts, the real races were in the primaries, which were viewed at the time as a mixed bag of results for moderate Republicans versus conservative Republicans. However, the seats, largely stayed as Republican seats. Of The Nine, four Senators will still be in place as their seats come up for election in 2028. One moved to the House; three will be replaced by moderates, two of whom were challenged in the primary by the more conservative branch (including Llew Jones – see below), and two were replaced by reliably conservative Republicans.
Some notable results from Tuesday – the Montana legislature remains a family business. The Morigeau (D), Regier (R), Vinton(R), Running Wolf (D) and Hinkle(R) families all have more than one family member elected to individual seats. We will see some pretty familiar names from other elections either back or serving in the Montana legislature, bringing varied experience to their seats – Kathleen Williams (D-Bozeman area) made two runs for the sole Congressional seat (at the time) closer than expected. She will be joined by Monica Tranel (D-Missoula area) who made two runs for the western Congressional seat - also closer than anticipated will both be in the legislature; Williams in the Senate, Tranel in the House. Stacy Zinn (R-Billings area) who ran for the eastern Congressional seat in a primary will also be in the House.
There are a couple of races that are reallyreally tight. It appears in Cascade County Stever Keller (D) has defeated incumbent Melissa Nikolakakos (R - another family name in the legislature) by 46 votes. Also in Cascade County, Eric Tilleman (R) looks to have defeated Rebecca Bogden-Richards by 101 votes. And in Billings Curtis Schomer (R) may have held onto his seat against Tucker Colvin (D) by 32 votes. Senator MaryAnn Dunwell (D-East Helena) and Representative Courtney Sprunger (R-Kalispell) had unexpectedly tight races.
Finally, two incumbent legislators, from different factions of the Republican party remain. House Majority Leader Steve Fitzpatrick (R-Great Falls and another family name in the legislature) and Senator-elect Llew Jones (R-Conrad) are both coming back. Jones survived a significant primary challenge from the right to handily win his general election race. Jones is the legislative budget guru – in the past, regardless of leadership, if he didn’t approve it the proposal was not included in the budget. Both Fitzpatrick and Jones had to go to Court to stop a last-minute determination (after the primary and only days from formal ballot appearance) from Attorney General Austin Knudsen (R - another legislative family name) to prevent them from appearing on the ballot. Knudsen, as a result of a very late request from Senate President Matt Regier, determined that the term limit law meant that one could not run for either the House or Senate after having served in the prior Chamber for 8 years. It was widely seen as an attempt to keep Jones (a moderate Republican) off the ballot after his bruising primary from the right.However it also snared Fitzpatrick (a member of the conservative leadership). The Supreme Court determined Knudsen’s decision would not hold for this election.
What does it all mean? The newly elected legislators and the Senate hold-overs will meet in Helena this week to elect leadership and start the rule-making process for their chambers. It will be interesting to see if the conservative Republicans continue their attempts to control the chambers despite individual members’ not toeing the conservative line. Interestingly, for the first time in some time both the Senate President and the House Speaker will be returning to the legislature.
MSIA Priorities
MSIA will provide Weekly LEGISLATIVE UPDATEs during the session, providing members with the latest on workers’ compensation issues, political rumor, innuendo and legislative issues.
Our agenda has not significantly changed, we will defend the current exclusion of mental-mental claims in our workers’ compensation system, the current employer choice of physician (which when it became law in 2011, NCCI assigned over 8 points in cost reductions to that provision alone), opposing presumptive coverages and our current benefit structure.
Proactively, we will again be working on over-turning the Court created deference to treating providers in challenged WC cases and broadening access to IME providers. We can anticipate challenges as well to the independent contractor and the Subsequent Injury Fund programs.
If members have individual issues you would like us to consider, please contact us directly. While we cannot advocate individually for everyone, we can consider individual positions, and may be able to offer advice on how to approach proposals for change. Your Board of Directors has never shied away from considering new ideas. At the same time, if we know of an issue that may impact a member or members that MSIA is not active on, we will let you know of proposals and actions that may be considered by the legislature.
MSIA Ethics Webinar 12/9 @ 10a MST
One of our most popular Webinars – Ethics – presented by Brian Allen of Optimized Outcome Solutions, will be December 9, starting at 10a Mountain time. We have applied for and expect to be granted one Ethics CE credit for both the MT Insurance Producer and MT WC Claims Examiner licenses. As always – there is no additional cost for unlimited seats for MSIA members.
Ethics can often be a difficult road to navigate. Competing interests, competing policies, competing goals and varying backgrounds all impact how someone in the workers’ compensation system might respond when faced with an ethical dilemma. This course will expose attendees to some interesting and fun ethical conflicts and will help attendees critically think through potential conflicts they encounter. You will get information and tools to help self-assess and make ethical decisions with consistency.
What is Ethics?
Ethics in Health Care
Ethics in Workers Compensatioon
Checking Your Ethical Performance
Weighing Your Decisions
- Ethical vs Legal
- What You See from Where You Stand
- Legal but Unethical?
- Illegal but Ethical?
This MSIA CE Webinar is sponsored by:
Mary Jane Barrett, MS, RN - Certified Case Manager & Nurse Consultant
406-257-8658 | MJNURSE.com | mjb@mjnurse.com
Laird Cowley, PLLC - For Workers’ Compensation & General Liability cases - Tom Harrington, Tom Bell or Erik Coate
406-541-7400 | LairdCowley.com | TBell@LairdCowley.com
Advance registration is required: click here to register. We anticipate 1 Ethics credit hour for both the MT Insurance Producer and MT WC Claims Examiner licenses.
As Part of UWC, MSIA Meets with US Dept of Labor OWCP and CMS Leadership
MSIA is a Board member of the National Council of Self Insurers and is their representative to UWC Strategies – another national business group working on unemployment and workers’ compensation issues at the federal level. For both these groups, their membership are national employer names you know – Marriott, Netflix, ADP, etc.
At the end of October, MSIA was part of a UWC group who met with the US Department of Labor Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs (OWCP) regarding the Longshore and Harborworkers Workers’ Compensation Act (LHWCA) issues. There are few, if any, Longshore exposures in Montana, but our members may have to deal with it if they have business on the coasts. Regardless, the issues presented by the existing LHWCA represent issues so many states have already dealt with in their workers’ compensation acts – fraud, benefit double dippling, objective medical evidence and how to deal with benefits after retirement age. We may be in a unique position nationally as having worked on these kind of issues in our state as well as other states in the past.
Only last week, UWC put together a meeting with CMS leadership regarding the WC MSA issues. We discussed the current Guidelines requiring settlement information provide all injury diagnosis codes regardless of dates of injuries involved in the settlement. While we did not reach consensus, there was a far more understanding of why CMS was looking for the information in this format, as well as their seeming to understand our concerns with why reporting injuries not associated with the individual claim is a problem. With that understanding, CMS promised to review their internal systems to see if there were potential changes they could make to capture the information they are looking for, without driving the WC industry crazy. They offered potential changes may be in the January, and particularly the April, scheduled update to the MSA reporting Guides. MSIA will continue to be involved and report to our members.
We also discussed with CMS direct payments of MSA amounts. There will have to be a federal statutory change to allow CMS to accept funds without a legally provided debt occurring. The business proposals to allow for direct payment of the agreed to MSA funds, would provide that – a payment without a legal “debt” having been created. We agreed this would make CMS operations more streamlined and potentially easier but could not happen without statutory change.
We discussed appeals, prescription drugs, and the use of rated age. These are all issues that have created additional workload, the potential of additional costs and the potential of ending settlement negotiations for individual WC claims. We did not resolve issues, but perhaps the more important, there was respectful and thoughtful conversation regarding the issues. That is not something that could be said of prior meetings – if those meetings occurred at all and therefore, that is progress in and of itself.
MSIA Annual Meeting Results
MSIA hosted our 2026 Annual Meeting on 10/7 at the Holiday Inn in West Yellowstone. 45 of our 66 members were either present or provided proxies for the meeting and a quorum was present. We added 10 new members last year and unfortunately lost six members.
Membership reviewed our financial status and adopted budget for this year. We reviewed the results of our Annual Survey, which largely resulted in our legislative priorities for the next legislative session (see above). As well, we re-elected Dee Wallcheck of Logan Health as the Board Vice Chair, Michael Marsh of Wrenwell Claims as Secretary Treasurer and Vicki Evans of MCCF as a Board member at large. Next year the Board Chair and three at large Board seats will be up for election. We will meet in Butte again in conjunction with the Governor’s Conference from September 14 – 17.
The MSIA Annual Meeting reception was a big hit and made possible through the generous sponsorships from MyMatrixx, Safety National, Sanderson Firm and Triage Now!
Also at the Annual Meeting MSIA retained our recognition as one of the leading WC state associations by welcoming Bill Zachry as our guest speaker. Zachry addressed Hard Stops, Guardrails and Ethics in A.I. – Designing Systems for Safer Results. Zachry is the Executive Director of CompSense and former national Group VP of Risk Management for Albertsons/Safeway. Members received a copy of his presentation and have access to the recorded audio of his presentation. Our Annual Meeting was made possible by our sponsors, Browning, Kaleczyc, Berry & Hoven, Clarus IME, Definiti Comp Solutions/Definiti Rx and Wrenwell Claims.
Welcome New MSIA Member – Shirley Ryan AbilityLab
When an employee experiences a serious injury or complex medical condition, choosing the right rehabilitation partner can make an important difference in recovery. Shirley Ryan AbilityLab is a nationally recognized rehabilitation hospital specializing in the care of adults and children with complex conditions and injuries. For 36 consecutive years, Shirley Ryan AbilityLab has been ranked the No. 1 hospital in the country for rehabilitation by U.S. News & World Report, a distinction unmatched by any other hospital in any specialty. Our physicians, nurses, therapists, care managers and other specialists work together to create an individualized rehabilitation plan focused on helping each patient achieve the best possible recovery.
Specialized Care for Complex Conditions - Shirley Ryan AbilityLab provides comprehensive rehabilitation for a wide range of diagnoses and injuries, including: Spinal cord injury, Traumatic brain injury, Stroke, Amputation and limb loss, Neurologic conditions, Medically complex and Pediatric. Why Shirley Ryan AbilityLab? What sets us apart is the unique integration of clinical care, research and innovation. Patients have access to advanced rehabilitation expertise and technology, with research incorporated directly into the clinical environment.
For anyone managing serious or complex injuries, Shirley Ryan AbilityLab offers:
· Specialized expertise for complex and catastrophic injuries
· Highly coordinated, interdisciplinary care tailored to the individual
· Research and innovation integrated directly into rehabilitation
· Advanced technology designed to help patients maximize function and independence
· Comprehensive patient and family support throughout recovery and the transition back to life, community and work
· Integrated prosthetic and orthotic expertise for individuals with limb loss and other complex needs
Shirley Ryan AbilityLab cares for more than 50,000 adult and pediatric patients from around the world annually. If you’re managing a particularly challenging claim, our team can serve as a specialized rehabilitation resource when an employee needs a higher level of expertise. Have a complex case or want to learn more?
Contact Will Robinson at WRobinson@SRALab.org | 206-718-1637